How I Learned to Hate in Ohio: A Novel

Synopsis

In the rural Ohio of the late 1980s, social outcast Barry Nadler begins his freshman year of high school with low expectations. He resolves to go unnoticed as much as possible, until his world is upended by the arrival in his small town of Gurbaksh Singh, Gary for short, a Sikh teenager. Charismatic and wildly conspicuous, Gurbaksh befriends Barry and, Gatsby-like, pulls him into a series of startling and uncharacteristic exploits. But as Barry becomes if not popular then popular-adjacent at school, the rest of his world starts to unravel. His mom's trips for her job with Marriott seem to keep her away longer. His philosophy professor dad is dealing with something. And soon his classmates and neighbors begin to react to the presence of the Singhs, a family so different from theirs. Through bitingly comic and intelligent asides and observations, the beguilingly self-aware Barry registers the seeds of xenophobia and racism finding fertile soil in this insular community, until, in an easy, graceless, unintentional slide, tragedy unfolds. In bracing prose that captures the authentic voice of a heartrending and hard-earned awakening, David Stuart MacLean's How I Learned to Hate in Ohio shines an uncomfortable light on the roots of white middle-American discontent. At once darkly funny and surprisingly moving, this is a humane, provocative, and undeniably resonant debut novel for our divided world. DAVID STUART MACLEAN is a winner of the PEN Emerging Writers Award for Nonfiction and author of the award-winning memoir The Answer to the Riddle Is Me. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Ploughshares, and Guernica and on This American Life. He has taught creative writing at the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; is co-founder of the Poison Pen Reading Series in Houston; and was a Fulbright scholar to India. Raised in central Ohio, he now lives in Chicago. How I Learned to Hate in Ohio is his debut novel.

Copyright:

2021

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

249 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781419747199

Publisher:

Abrams, Inc.

Date of Addition:

04/06/21

Copyrighted By:

David Stuart MacLean

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Literature and Fiction, Social Studies

Submitted By:

Terry Gorman

Proofread By:

Terry Gorman

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.