Buckeye
by Patrick Ryan
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Pub Date 2 Sep 2025 | Archive Date 2 Sep 2025
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Description
‘Funny and tender ... Patrick Ryan has long been one of my favourite writers’ ANN PATCHETT
‘I love this novel with my entire heart … Wise and heartbreaking’ ANN NAPOLITANO
In the small Ohio town of Bonhomie, Cal Jenkins and Margaret Salt come together in a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: she is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those whom they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving on a Navy cargo ship; she will soon learn that he may have perished in a predawn attack in the Philippine Sea.
But in a small town, nothing stays buried forever, and the consequences of that encounter will ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to re-examine who they thought they were – and what the future might hold.
Full of compassion, humour and charm, Buckeye is a dazzling portrait of an unforgettable community: of hopes and fears, loves and losses, and above all an indomitable longing for connection.
Available Editions
ISBN | 9781526689283 |
PRICE | |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews

Acclaimed short story writer Patrick Ryan’s debut novel follows two families, linked by a devastating secret, over forty decades beginning in the 1940s.
Cal was born with a disability that makes him ineligible to serve in the war, enduring the usual cruelties dished out by schoolchildren. Becky had also been the subject of derision thanks to her claims to hear the dead. No earth-shattering bolt of lightning makes these two fall for each other but their friendship leads to marriage, and eventually a son. On VE day, a beautiful redhead walks into the family hardware store asking Cal for a radio. They listen to the news together, Margaret so delighted that she kisses him. It’s some time before she has news of her husband, presumed missing, who returns carrying a grief he can’t talk about. When Margaret tells him she’s pregnant, Felix has the hope of the family life he’s buried so much to attain.
The story of these two families plays out against the background of great social change, exploring themes of family, sexuality, infidelity, love and forgiveness with a perceptive compassion and a touch of gentle humour. War is an underlying background hum – the ruinous effects on those left behind, on those who go to war and the ones that come home unable or unwilling to talk about it. Often doorstoppers make me feel desperate to cut swathes from them but Ryan’s impressive powerful novel kept me engrossed throughout.