From Ohio with Love

PRAISE FOR FROM OHIO WITH LOVE “Holden Caulfield may now step aside. Marling’s brushwork on our Midwestern canvas is accurate and precise, the portraits of our Irish and German forebears unsparing and true. Our longing to escape and our love of the place bound together, as in this Wallace Stevens line: “And the warmth of silence / that enveloped us afterward in all that / was left unsaid tunneled channels into the unsounded depths of memory.” - Anne Luyat, Professor of English Emeritus, University of Avignon. “So many natural parts of the cultural landscape I haven't thought of for decades—Hudepohl and Carling Black Label beers, Fisher Body and the Norwood Y, Longview Hospital (the way the very name threatened), pony kegs (the thing persists, but not the noun phrase). …. a terrific book that captures the oddly blank momentum with which a child collides with experiences, rules where rules weren't anticipated, emergent instincts, sudden solemnity, and character begins to emerge. It's almost literally true that I couldn't put it down.” - Steven Justice, Professor of English Emeritus, U.C. Berkeley. “Marling is a marvelous storyteller, bolstered by a brilliant sense of detail, which makes his stories pop off the page. He takes the ordinary—and extraordinary—stories of his life and weaves them into the cultural and political fabric of all our lives. The thematic thread of the Cold War creates a context that is the same texture for all of us who lived through it—and enlightens those who didn’t. As in his other books, he demonstrates his scholastic flare with a flowing prose that makes reading feel like a walk along a stream. Boy Wonder illuminates the younger years of his life—and compels us to relive the elements of our own.” -- Gaylan Neilson, author of Fake Work, Stop Fake Work in Education, plays and a prize-winning radio series.