RavePittsburgh Post-GazetteOcean State is a haunting immersion into the desperate and immediate world of adolescence gone wrong, where emotional certainty dictates that actions be taken before rational minds can pull back. The result is a gripping march to the inevitable, presented through the close perspective of four women whose lives will soon be forever changed ... Despite her preteen awkwardness, Marie is a voice of burgeoning wisdom, and we benefit from her periodic turns as narrator, a shift that proves especially powerful at novel’s end ... Descriptions are simple and to the point, with thoughtful prose matching the surroundings ... In addition to granting us close proximity to each character’s movements, O’Nan deftly provides a larger collage of the enormity that unfolds, leaving us with reflection of the tenuousness of life, the wish that this tragedy could have been avoided, and the privilege of having been witness to its progression.
Louise Erdrich
PositivePittsburgh Post-Gazette... at times amusing, tragic, poignant, uncomfortable, current, ageless, and unflinching in calling out injustice toward marginalized people in America ... The novel is powerful and blunt in educating its readers about the racist beginnings of Minnesota and surrounding regions ... This ambitious menu of intertwining items comes close to paying off fully, although periodic forays into lesser characters and overly generous details about daily life at times bog down the whole. The advent of Covid-19 appears late in the book and is worked effectively into the story, allowing Tookie to demonstrate if not discover her softer, caring side. Unfortunately, the horrific murder of George Floyd that follows is introduced late enough in the book that it feels almost shoehorned in, and the portion of the story left before book’s end isn’t quite adequate enough to weave its enormity into what began as Flora’s light ghost tale. Still, most of the book works very well, and Erdrich has once again delivered a richly painted story that examines the best and worst of humankind, doing so with objectivity, heartache, faith, and generosity.
