Author Archives: SJW

Latest Reviews: Ocean State

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“Ocean State” is the story of a murder, but it wouldn’t be right to call it a mystery, because the killer’s identity is established in the very first sentence. Even as he inverts the form, veteran novelist Stewart O’Nan effectively keeps you turning the pages quickly with this tragic story of teenage love.

“Told through multiple voices, “Ocean State” examines the murder of a young girl” – StarTribune

Despite the banal surface, this novel invites us in — we want to know these people, learn about their complexities. In the end, they’re as interesting as you or I; O’Nan’s great gift is that we want to know more about every person he writes, no matter how unremarkable they seem from the outside.

“A murder in the suburbs – Ennui meets passion in O’Nan’s latest novel” – Boston Globe

In the first pages of this reversed psychological thriller, we learn that teenage Angel has killed a girl; soon there’s little question as to whom and why. (“Love.”) In flashbacks, the suspense comes from peeling back the layers in Stewart O’Nan’s immersive character studies.

“8 New Books To Read This Month” – Vanity Fair

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2022 7pm–8:30pm – In Person Book Launch! “Ocean State” by Stewart O’Nan @ White Whale Bookstore

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In Person Book Launch!

“Ocean State” by Stewart O’Nan
Tuesday March 15, 2022 7pm – 8:30pm

White Whale Bookstore
4754 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

White Whale is so excited to welcome Stewart O’Nan back to the store for the launch of his latest novel: Ocean State! Our booksellers are already raving about it, so make sure you add this event to your calendar and come on out to celebrate.

[RSVP and buy the books here]

Jennifer Haigh in Conversation with Stewart O’Nan

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From Riverstone Books:

Best-selling author Jennifer Haigh will join Pittsburgh’s own Stewart O’Nan in a conversation on writing, story-telling, and fiction that moves us.

REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE

Jennifer Haigh is the author of the short story collection News from Heaven and six bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, including Heat and Light, Faith, and Mrs. Kimble. Her books have won both the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction and the PEN/L.L. Winship Award for work by a New England writer. Her short fiction has been published widely, in The Atlantic, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and many other places. She lives in New England.

Stewart O’Nan is a native Pittsburgher and an Allderdice grad (Go Dragons!). His novels include Snow Angels, set in Butler, Everyday People, in East Liberty, and Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself, in Highland Park.

Starred Review of Ocean State – Publishers Weekly!

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There’s no mystery about what happens in this beautifully rendered and heartbreaking story from O’Nan (West of Sunset). In the opening pages, teenager Angel Oliviera murders another teen, Birdy Alves. O’Nan explores what led up to the killing and paints an intimate canvas of a small Rhode Island town in 2009. Women, teenage and adult, are the focal points and the narrators: Angel’s observant younger sister, Marie, sets the stage, and Birdy, Angel, and Angel’s mother, Carol, tell the story through a series of flashbacks and internal monologues. Birdy is dating Hector, but she’s in a clandestine relationship with Angel’s boyfriend. Angel frets about her mother’s desperate attempts to find love. Carol wants a better life for her daughters, but senses it’s “beyond her control” (the 2009 setting underscores the economic fragility). Social media serves as the ugly catalyst for the action that slowly, inexorably escalates. O’Nan evokes the feverish excitement of young love (“She only means to kiss him goodbye but they don’t know how to stop”) and the truly destructive force of jealousy. This isn’t a crime novel; it’s a Shakespearean tragedy told in spare, poetic, insightful prose. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Co. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly (https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8021-5927-4)