Buckeye

A Novel

By: Patrick Ryan

One town. Two families. A secret that changes everything.

“A small-town novel of epic proportions” (Tom Perrotta), this captivating story weaves the intimate lives of two midwestern families across generations, from World War II to the late twentieth century.

“I love this book with my entire heart.”—Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: She is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving on a Navy cargo ship, out of harm’s way—until a telegram suggests that the unthinkable might have happened.

Later, as the country reconstructs in the postwar boom, a secret grows in Bonhomie—but nothing stays buried forever in a small town. Against the backdrop of some of the most transformative decades in modern America, the consequences of that long-ago encounter ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to reexamine who they thought they were and what the future might hold.

Sweeping yet intimate, rich with piercing observation and the warmth that comes from profound understanding of the human spirit, Buckeye captures the universal longing for love and for goodness.

©2025 Patrick Ryan (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Buckeye offers just about everything I look for in a great story: a vivid setting, historical sweep, rich characters who break your heart even as they make you laughand all of this in abundance.”—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath trilogy

“I love this novel with my entire heart. Patrick Ryan has created a world, and characters, that exist inside me now, and as a reader that is my deepest joy. Buckeye tells the story of two families across sixty years of American history; the novel is wise and heartbreaking and full of wonderful characters who struggle across decades—as we all do—to live as their whole selves. I could not recommend this book more highly.”—Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful

“Patrick Ryan’s ambitious new novel Buckeye offers just about everything I look for in a great story: a vivid setting, historical sweep, rich characters who break your heart even as they make you laugh–and all of this in abundance.”—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath trilogy