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Buckeye
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Buckeye

By: Patrick Ryan
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About this listen

'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

May, 1945. As news of the Allied victory in Europe reaches the small town of Bonhomie, Ohio, a woman named Margaret Salt walks into a hardware store and asks the man behind the counter, Cal Jenkins, for a radio. What happens next will change both of their lives forever.

While the country reconstructs in the post-war boom, a secret grows in Bonhomie – and nothing can remain hidden in a small town. The consequences of that long-ago encounter will intertwine the fates of two families, rippling through the next generation and 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 the human spirit by way of one unforgettable community; the twisted roads we take to achieve forgiveness and redemption; and above all a universal longing for love and connection.

©2025 Patrick Ryan (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Small Town & Rural

Critic Reviews

'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 Ia Drang Valley. Buckeye is that book, and it soars' (Tom Hanks)
Heartfelt and at times harrowing, Buckeye is both an absorbing portrait of an American past and a sympathetic exploration of what continues to sustain us – and to plague us. There are no heroes or villains in Patrick Ryan's wonderful novel, only recognisably human creatures, each one of them drawn with refreshing honesty; each one flawed, noble, confused, passionate, lonely, loving, and, above all, real (Alice McDermott, author of ABSOLUTION)
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)
A small-town novel of epic proportions, full of unforgettable characters and thorny human dilemmas. 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 THE LEFTOEVERS, ELECTION and TRACY FLICK CAN'T WIN)

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