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.
Captivating ... Omniscient, sweeping, almost defiantly sentimental, Buckeye is a reminder of the deep pleasure of following a cast of characters over their entire lives ... Ryan’s wide-angle approach complements his evocative yet tranquil style ... The author clearly loves these people, and he makes the safe bet that you will, too ... Indelible characters.
I loved Buckeye ... Masterfully detailed ... I felt less like a reader and more like an observer, an embedded one who hoped for the best but feared the worst for the denizens of Bonhomie ... I didn't want to leave the pages...and neither will you.
This luminous and tender novel follows, for most of its stately length, the interwoven lives of two married couples in the fictional town of Bonhomie, Ohio ... It is no surprise that Ryan cut his teeth writing short fiction: Buckeye is elevated throughout by the precision with which he captures the tiny, haunting glories of everyday suburban life ... For all its quotidian charm, a deep melancholy prevents Buckeye from ever tipping into saccharine nostalgia. I’d probably not go quite so far as to bring Faulkner into it – this is accessible, amicable and more-or-less conventional literary fiction – but nonetheless, Ryan writes his wounded souls with the same exactitude as his dusty vinyl diner booths
