The stories of Ocean State roll over the reader like a wave. Family pleasures, marriage, the essential moments and mysteries of a seemingly ordinary world that break into magical territory before we can brace ourselves -- Jean McGarry puts us in life's rough seas with what the New York Times has called a "deft, comic, and devastatingly precise" hand.
Praise for Jean McGarry
"A gifted observer, records with fidelity the daily minutiae of life and introspection." -- Publishers Weekly
"Ms. McGarry's stories have the feel of paintings by Edward Hopper. Her characters are solitudinous and lonely, rarely funny, but they often carry with them, even in their defeat, a certain dignity. She is a writer who honors the human condition." -- Baltimore Sun
"McGarry's thickly layered prose, with its stunning emotional accuracies, is always just on the verge of exploding into dream or fantasy." -- Women's Review of Books
"At her best, McGarry illuminates our quirky, flawed selves and neighbors, and makes us nod even as we sigh." -- Providence Journal
"McGarry's prose is fresh, her plots unpredictable, and her dialogue shimmeringly wry... Reading McGarry's stories is to be surprised and delighted." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)