Stephen Markley – författare

“Extraordinary...beautifully precise...[an] earnestly ambitious debut.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wild, angry, and devastating masterpiece of a book.” —NPR “[A] descendent of the Dickensian ‘social novel’ by way of Jonathan Franzen: epic fiction that lays bare contemporary culture clashes, showing us who we are and how we got here.” —Oprah Daily “A book that has stayed with me ever since I put it down.” —Seth Meyers, host of Late Night with Seth MeyersOne sweltering night in 2013, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown in northeastern Ohio. There’s Bill Ashcraft, a passionate, drug-abusing young activist whose flailing ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to post-BP New Orleans, and now back home with a mysterious package strapped to the undercarriage of his truck; Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting her family and the mother of her best friend and first love, whose disappearance spurs the mystery at the heart of the novel; Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he’s tried desperately to forget; and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the washed-up captain of the football team triggers the novel’s shocking climax. Set over the course of a single evening, Ohio toggles between the perspectives of these unforgettable characters as they unearth dark secrets, revisit old regrets and uncover—and compound—bitter betrayals. Before the evening is through, these narratives converge masterfully to reveal a mystery so dark and shocking it will take your breath away.

“Extraordinary...beautifully precise...[an] earnestly ambitious debut.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wild, angry, and devastating masterpiece of a book.” —NPR “[A] descendent of the Dickensian ‘social novel’ by way of Jonathan Franzen: epic fiction that lays bare contemporary culture clashes, showing us who we are and how we got here.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “A book that has stayed with me ever since I put it down.” —Seth Meyers, host of Late Night with Seth MeyersOne sweltering night in 2013, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown in northeastern Ohio. There’s Bill Ashcraft, a passionate, drug-abusing young activist whose flailing ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to post-BP New Orleans, and now back home with a mysterious package strapped to the undercarriage of his truck; Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting her family and the mother of her best friend and first love, whose disappearance spurs the mystery at the heart of the novel; Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he’s tried desperately to forget; and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the washed-up captain of the football team triggers the novel’s shocking climax. Set over the course of a single evening, Ohio toggles between the perspectives of these unforgettable characters as they unearth dark secrets, revisit old regrets and uncover—and compound—bitter betrayals. Before the evening is through, these narratives converge masterfully to reveal a mystery so dark and shocking it will take your breath away.

Norman Mailer. Hunter S. Thompson. David Foster Wallace. All Stephen Markley ever wanted was a reason to use their names in a book blurb.In November 2011, the nascent author and journalist attended a Republican presidential primary debate in Rochester, Michigan, wishing to see first-hand one of the most outlandish, jaw-dropping, eye-brow-raising primaries in American political history. The author of “Publish This Book” took his seat in the media filing center, set up his laptop, and uncapped the complimentary tin of M&Ms. Then he ate a bunch of hallucinogenic mushrooms. After that, things — obviously — got weird. From a verbal sparring match with the chaste being that resides behind Rick Santorum’s sail-shaped nose to an encounter with bodyguards the size of Lone Star State cattle to a sweat-streaked, hair-tearing freak-out in a gymnasium shower stall, his experience inside the carnival theater of Election 2012’s most memorable presidential debate will make you laugh, cry, dream, and despair. What Markley brought back from that debate is an essay not only about a political party and a presidential election but an entire rotten generation of policy perfidy and economic magical thinking — a report from an ideological faction with a demonstrated disconnect from reality that even Gore Vidal could not begin to appreciate. You know, unless he was on shrooms.A perfect storm of youth and passion, recklessness and imagination, “The Great Dysmorphia” will take its place in the annals of unconventional, unbridled, uncensored, totally f***ing bizarre American campaign literature.

A New York Times Notable Book “This book is, simply put, a modern classic. If you read it, you''ll never forget it. Prophetic, terrifying, uplifting.” —Stephen King From the bestselling author of Ohio, a masterful American epic charting a near future approaching collapse and a nascent but strengthening solidarity.In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters—a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come. From the Gulf Coast to Los Angeles, the Midwest to Washington, DC, their intertwined odysseys unfold against a stark backdrop of accelerating chaos as they summon courage, galvanize a nation, fall to their own fear, and find wild hope in the face of staggering odds. As their stories hurtle toward a spectacular climax, each faces a reckoning: what will they sacrifice to salvage humanity’s last chance at a future? A singular achievement, The Deluge is a once-in-a-generation novel that meets the moment as few works of art ever have.

A New York Times Notable Book “This book is, simply put, a modern classic. If you read it, you''ll never forget it. Prophetic, terrifying, uplifting.” —Stephen King From the bestselling author of Ohio, a masterful American epic charting a near future approaching collapse and a nascent but strengthening solidarity.In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters—a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come. From the Gulf Coast to Los Angeles, the Midwest to Washington, DC, their intertwined odysseys unfold against a stark backdrop of accelerating chaos as they summon courage, galvanize a nation, fall to their own fear, and find wild hope in the face of staggering odds. As their stories hurtle toward a spectacular climax, each faces a reckoning: what will they sacrifice to salvage humanity’s last chance at a future? A singular achievement, The Deluge is a once-in-a-generation novel that meets the moment as few works of art ever have.

In einer schicksalshaften Sommernacht im Jahr 2013 treffen sich vier ehemalige Klassenkameraden in New Canaan, in der sie aufgewachsen sind. Jeder von ihnen hat eine Mission, alle werden von Reue, Geheimnissen und verlorenen Lieben heimgesucht. Da ist Bill Ashcraft, ein alkoholkranker, drogenabhängiger Aktivist, dessen vergebliche Ambitionen ihn von Kambodscha zum Zuccotti Park und zurück nach New Orleans geführt haben und der nun mit einem mysteriösen Paket an der Unterseite seines Trucks zurück nach "The Cane" ist; Stacey Moore, eine Doktorandin, die sich widerwillig der Mutter ihres ehemaligen Geliebten stellt; Dan Eaton, ein schüchterner Veteran mit drei Einsätzen im Irak, der zu einem Abendessen mit seiner Highschool-Liebe, die er zu vergessen versucht hat, nach Hause kommt; und die schöne, zerbrechliche Tina Ross, deren Rendezvous mit dem Kapitän der Footballmannschaft den schockierenden Höhepunkt des Romans auslöst. Seit der Jahrhundertwende ist eine Generation herangewachsen, die nur Krieg, Rezession, politischen Stillstand, Rassismus und die schwelende Angst vor Umweltkatastrophen kennt. In den vergessenen Winkeln des Landes, aus denen die Industrie längst verschwunden ist, wo Zwangsvollstreckungen, Walmarts und Opiate das Landdurchziehen, sind die Sterberaten der weißen Landbevölkerung sprunghaft angestiegen, angeheizt durchSelbstmord, Sucht und ein grassierendes Gefühl der Ausgrenzung und Desillusionierung.