Buckeye (2025) - Patrick Ryan

 

Buckeye is a multi-generational family saga following the evolution of  two small town Ohio families from the 1920s to the 1980s. The book’s central character is Cal Jenkins, a young man who is born with one leg significantly shorter than the other. Still dejected because he is physically ineligible for World War II military service, Cal marries Becky, a hometown girl who sometimes is able to make minimal contact with the dead, a talent that compounds Cal’s feelings of his own inadequacy. The other family in the story is comprised of two outsiders who move to Bonhomie as adults: Margaret, who grew up in an orphanage, and Felix, who was transferred to the town after receiving a job promotion at another Ohio location. 

The two families become indelibly linked on VE Day when Margaret goes to town for some shopping and suddenly starts hearing loud chatter and cheers on the street. Sensing significant war news, she rushes into Cal’s hardware store hoping that he has a radio she can listen to the good news on. Then, in celebratory excitement, Margaret impulsively kisses Cal on her way out of the store, and that single kiss ignites a spark that will directly impact the lives of everyone in both families for at least two generations. 

Because of the risk of spoiling the novel for future readers, I’m going to stop with just those plot details.

Patrick Ryan, despite his tendency to do as much “telling” as “showing” in his storytelling, creates several memorable characters in Buckeye. Cal, because of his insecurities about not being enough of a man to fight alongside his friends and neighbors, seems very real. Becky is a goodhearted woman who finds meaning in her life by connecting the dead to those they left behind, never charging a dime for her time or services. Margaret’s coming-of-age story in the orphanage is one that deserves a novel of its own, and Felix, her husband, is a man desperately struggling to determine exactly what kind of man he wants to be for the rest of his life. Each of the four are as interesting as they are different from one another, but it is when they begin to interact that the sparks really begin to fly.

Buckeye is a novel about keeping secrets from those closest to you, and how keeping those secrets can create enough guilt, resentment, and anger to destroy the very relationships you were trying to protect in the first place. It explores the definition of masculinity and comes up with some surprising conclusions. It is about small town America during World War II, an era during which people knew their neighbors along with most of their secrets - and all the good and the bad that came with that closeness. Buckeye is a longish novel in which whatever action there is can seem to develop very slowly at times, and I considered abandoning it at one point, But the characters, and their predicament, kept me coming back. And I’m glad I did.