Buckeye

Patrick Ryan's Buckeye is a sweeping, decades-long narrative about two families in a small Ohio town. You spend the most time with two couples: Cal and Becky, and Felix and Margaret. Cal is the heart of the book, a man who desperately wanted to fight in World War II but couldn't due to a physical disability, so he spends his life trying to find purpose at home. Then you have his wife, Becky, who is a lovely, quiet soul-and also happens to be a psychic medium. Ryan treats her gift with great respect.

The other couple, Felix and Margaret, are dealing with their own layers of secrets, especially Felix, who carries around some deep emotional wounds from the war that he can't share with anyone.

There are no heroes or villains in this story, just complex, flawed people. This is a beautifully written saga that spans many generations. I loved how the author illustrated how a single moment of weakness or passion can impact generations.

If you like character-driven books that feel like you're watching real people, making mistakes and trying to do what's right but sometimes failing, this one is fantastic.

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.

From the publisher

Penguin Random House | Sep 2, 2025 | 464 pages | ISBN:9780593595039 | Literary Fiction

"Buckeye is a thing of wonder. It's my book of the year. I couldn't love it more."-Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark

"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

"Heartfelt and at times harrowing, Buckeye is both an absorbing portrait of an American past and a sympathetic exploration of what continues to sustain usand to plague us. There are no heroes or villains, only recognizably human creatures . . . each one flawed, noble, confused, passionate, lonely, loving, and, above all, real."-Alice McDermott, author of Absolution

"I've been yearning for a novel that connects the American generations who dealt with our two wars-one of Omaha Beach, the other of the la Drang Valley. Buckeye is that book, and it soars."-Tom Hanks

"Patrick Ryan conjures a vanished America with uncanny skill and writes with deep insight and lyrical intelligence about war and adultery, the mysteries of sexuality and family life, and the strange paths we have to travel to forgive-or at least begin to understand-the people who've hurt us the most. This is a novel to settle in with, a world unto itself."-Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children

"A deeply compassionate book . . . Patrick Ryan tells a story we very much need right now: how forgiveness might creep up-despite everything-over time, tender and elusive and ever-complex. I was taken in by this book, utterly transported."-Emily Fridlund, author of History of Wolves

"Patrick Ryan has created a world, and characters, that exist inside me now, and as a reader that is my deepest joy. Buckeye is wise and heartbreaking and full of individuals 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

"Full of love and war and the perilous intimacies of smalltown life, Buckeye is funny and tender, realistic and strange. Patrick Ryan has long been one of my favorite writers. I have a feeling that with this book he's going to be everyone's favorite writer."-Ann Patchett

"Filled with wit and emotion on every page, this is a stirring paean to the joys and sorrows of family."-Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This quietly affecting and nuanced story . . . deftly blends in surprising twists and insights as it follows seemingly ordinary people living seemingly typical lives, resulting in a tale that comes across as absolutely authentic and deeply satisfying."-Booklist, starred review

"Ryan skillfully explores his characters' emotional vulnerabilities [and] in subtly different ways . . . creates considerable sympathy for each of [them] while taking care not to tip the scale in favor of any one of them."-Kirkus Reviews