Stewart O'Nan: A Great Sure Bet Option

As I was scanning my RSS feed the other day, I came upon this short but wonderful reading recommendation courtesy of my NPR Books feed:

Inspired by the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, author Jonathan Evison recommends the novel Songs for the Missing, by Stewart O'Nan, as a book with something to say about mysterious disappearances.

Click here for the full transcript.

I agree with Jonathan Evison when he said, about this novel in general, "it's a deeply human, finely detailed, achingly sympathetic approach to the characters."

I feel like that is a great description of every book O'Nan writes.  They are all on different subjects, but each of his novels is character centered.  O'Nan sympathetically portrays his characters, documenting some large event and its aftermath.  We see the characters thoughts and understand their motivations.  Each novel has a slim investigative angle, but more on the psychological suspense track.  These can be slightly sad stories, but I describe O'Nan as for readers who like the idea of a Jodi Picould but find her melodrama a bit over the top.

His novels also tend to be short and fairly fast paced with a polished writing style that will even appeal to more discerning literary fiction reader too.

As readers start coming in looking for what to read while on Spring Break, try suggesting Stewart  O'Nan.  His works will appeal to a wide swath of readers and you are bound to have some on the shelf.