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Stewart O'Nan's gripping and disturbing novel OCEAN STATE focuses on a murder, but there is no mystery about who did it. The horrifying revelation, calmly stated in the book's first line, is that the narrator's sister helped kill another girl because of love. The book goes on to illustrate the lives of the people involved—the two girls, their families, and the boy whom both girls loved. The effect of poverty and limited opportunities for change in a working-class Rhode Island town is shown with great insight.
O'Nan creates a world that feels sunless. We meet two teenage girls, Angel and Birdy, who work at menial jobs and whose whole worlds focus on the boyfriends who might somehow help them find a different life. Angel has a younger sister Marie who shares her own life and observations with the reader. Birdy is from a large Hispanic family that seems more cohesive than Angel's. Birdy has a boyfriend named Hector, but she is in love with Myles, Angel's boyfriend. Myles is the rich kid, who drives an expensive car and whose parents own a beach house. Birdy knows that Angel is "the girlfriend," but that does not stop the passionate relationship she has with Myles, lying to her family as she sneaks away from her job to be with him. And Myles tells her he loves her, while at the same time staying with Angel. This is not a good set up.
Angel's mother Carol, divorced from her husband, gets involved with one date after another, men her daughters find distasteful and unwelcome in their lives. The women are the fascinating characters in this novel, with the men playing secondary roles. O'Nan is able to nail the way sisters interact and the petty horrors of high school romances, especially in the present day of social media. Pictures surface and the girls are the brunt of gossip and curses.
Although this book focuses on teen romance, it has great depth. O'Nan's ability to write sympathetic characters creates a haunting novel. Rhode Island is the "Ocean State,” and the characters are literally in an "ocean state," at sea in a world that just gets out of hand. There is, at the end, a great sadness and perhaps, for the reader, a bit more understanding of the reasons that things can go so wrong.
§ Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, May 2022
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