I’ve always been a writer who puts character first, and when I embarked on writing this novel, I was prepared for some deep character dives. But Buckeye is larger in scope and size than anything I’d ever attempted, and I had no idea of the depths that awaited me… What I learned–what I keep learning, as a writer–is that when you bring a lot of characters together, a story emerges, and it’s not always the story you thought you were going to write.
Buckeye explores the repercussions of deceit and betrayal, and the winding, sometimes impossible paths we have to travel on our way to making amends. Forgiveness, the novel suggests, isn’t just one decision; it’s a million decisions, made over and over.
― Patrick Ryan, Letter to booksellers
What booksellers are saying about Buckeye
- I read this book over the course of a week, and each time I picked it up I was so eager to spend more time with the characters. The writing is gorgeous, but in the most understated way. This book has a lot of beautiful things to say about what it means to build a life with someone—a friend, a spouse, a parent, a neighbor, a coworker—and how a series of moments, accumulated over decades, inevitably become a life.
― Amanda Grell, Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas | BUY
- Oh my heart! This sweeping family epic was everything I hoped it would be…an engrossing, heartbreaking story of two couples finding their way through decades of love, loss, tragedy and forgiveness. Each character is beautifully drawn and authentically flawed in their struggles with who they are , and who they are expected to be. Buckeye is the kind of captivating novel you can’t stop thinking about, days after turning the last page.
― Anderson McKean, Page & Palette in Fairhope, Alabama | BUY
- Patrick Ryan traces the story of two families in small town Bonhomie, Ohio from the 1930’s through the bicentennial celebration and how their lives intersect. This is a masterfully told story of how we may allow our past to define who we think we are, but, ultimately the past is not the most important element of our lives- it is actually love and forgiveness that should define us. This was a very moving and thought provoking novel and one of the lines that will stick with the reader is “water, water everywhere. Water under the bridge. So much …… water.”
― Jim Clemmons, Sundog Books in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida | BUY
- Buckeye is a family saga – a glorious one at that – but it’s also a novel about what happens when something is kept hidden for too long. Set in the small Ohio town of Bonhomie in the middle of the twentieth century, Buckeye follows two families, the Jenkins and the Salts, who are forever bound by a secret – one that will ultimately blow their worlds apart. Full of subtle wit and wry observations, this is an epic novel about many things: honesty, the futility of war, family, love, forgiveness, and – ultimately – being true to yourself.
― Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi | BUY
- Buckeye is an all encompassing historical novel about two interwoven families in a small Midwest town from World War two until the early 80s. It’s full of familial turmoil and love and is incredibly addictive! Margaret Salt is a military wife whose husband is serving on a transport boat. When he goes missing, she has a very short affair with Cal Jenkins. Cal is burdened by his inability to serve and is skeptical of his wife’s ability to contact the dead. This secret will have consequences that will carry on for years.
― Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser, Inc. in Marietta, Georgia | BUY
About Patrick Ryan
Patrick Ryan is the author of the novel Buckeye. He is also the author of the story collections The Dream Life of Astronauts (named one of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Louis Times-Dispatch, LitHub, Refinery 29, and Electric Literature, and longlisted for The Story Prize) and Send Me. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, the anthology Tales of Two Cities, and elsewhere. The former associate editor of Granta, he is the editor of the literary magazine One Story and lives in New York City.
I wanted to write a controlled, intense, strange, sensual, truthful novel set firmly in a genre I’m increasingly thinking of as wonder. You can watch a romcom where someone is covered with bees and they’re terrified, and you’re laughing, so their experience is not the same as your experience. Likewise, you can be watching a horror film, and they think they’re having a normal Monday, and you know better. That’s where the horror happens.
