Buckeye by Patrick Ryan Summary: A Small-Town Saga
Introduction
Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye follows Cal Jenkins, a young man kept out of World War II because one leg is two inches shorter than the other, and his intuitive wife Becky, alongside Margaret and Felix Salt.
The novel moves from 1918 to 1981 through naval sinkings, small-town séances, factory layoffs, and the slow unravelling of secrets that reshape both households.
👉 On YouTube: Buckeye Summary & Review | Patrick Ryan
TL;DR: The Short Version
Buckeye is a character-driven historical saga set in the fictional Ohio town of Bonhomie, spanning roughly sixty years and three generations of two linked families.
- Who it follows: Cal Jenkins, his medium wife Becky, and their neighbors Margaret and Felix Salt.
- What drives it: A brief affair on V-E Day, a hidden paternity, a closeted wartime romance, and the consequences that ripple outward for decades.
- What it covers: World War I, World War II home-front life, the Pacific naval theater, the Vietnam War, and the Bicentennial era.
- Core themes: Secrets, grief, war trauma, forgiveness, and the pull of small-town identity.
- Structure: 25 chapters across 3 parts, told chronologically with shifting perspectives.
Read The Full Chapter-by-Chapter Summary
Buckeye Summary: The Full Story (Spoilers Ahead)
Warning: this section contains major spoilers, including the ending.
In 1941 and 1942, Calvin “Cal” Jenkins tries to enlist after Pearl Harbor but is rejected. His left leg is two inches shorter than his right, and the military classifies him 4-F.
His father, Everett B. Jenkins, is a traumatized World War I veteran with a Purple Heart from Meuse-Argonne. Everett lives among mounds of junk on Compton Road, rides a man-sized tricycle, collects scrap, and types angry letters to sitting U.S. Presidents.
Cal meets Rebecca “Becky” Hanover at Fink’s Drugstore. Becky is a spiritualist and medium who first discovered her ability at age nine, when she correctly located a neighbor’s body in the Laurie River.
Cal and Becky marry in September 1942 and settle on Taft Street in Brookdale. Her father, Roman Hanover, who owns Hanover Hardware, helps them buy the house.
Their son, Calvin Maurice Jenkins Jr. — nicknamed “Skip” — is born in April 1944. Becky begins taking local clients for séances and advertises herself as a “Spirit Liaison.”
Meanwhile, Margaret Anderson, an orphan abandoned in 1918 at the Open Arms Orphanage in Doyle, Ohio, moves to Columbus at eighteen. In 1937 she marries Felix Salt, a junior executive at the Tuck & Sons aluminum plant.
Felix is a closeted gay or bisexual man who once had a formative romance with his college roommate, Gil Meade. He married to conform to societal expectations and to satisfy his demanding father, Russ Salt.
In fall 1939, Felix and Margaret relocate to Roswell Lane in Bonhomie. During the war, Felix enlists in the Navy.
A travelling spiritualist promoter named Casey LaGrange arrives in town and tries to pressure Becky into joining a commercial touring show called “American Mystics.” When he makes improper advances, Cal and Roman force him onto a train out of town at hammer-point.
The intervention enrages Becky and creates the couple’s first deep rift. Cal is made to sleep in the guest bedroom.
On V-E Day in May 1945, Margaret walks into Hanover Hardware to hear President Truman’s surrender address on the store radio. Caught in the emotion of the moment, she kisses Cal in the basement.
That summer, Cal and Margaret begin a secret, recurring affair, meeting on Thursday afternoons while Felix is deployed and Becky is occupied.
At sea in the Pacific aboard the Liberty ship SS James Teague, Felix experiences a profound romance with Seaman Augustus “Augie” Varick during a week on Espiritu Santo.
On June 25, 1945, the Teague is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea. Augie drowns. Felix survives in a life raft after fighting off a panicked purser named Baxter.
He sustains a shattered shoulder, a broken arm, and severe psychological trauma over Augie’s death. He returns home in summer 1945.
Margaret first receives a missing-in-action telegram, then news of his survival. They have sex on his first night home. Nine months later, in April 1946, she gives birth to Thomas “Tom” Aquinas Salt.
As Tom grows, he shows bright red hair, green eyes, and double crown swirls matching Cal’s.
Cal and Becky reconcile in late 1945. Felix, suffering post-war depression and grief, is demoted at Tuck & Sons and eventually terminated in 1953.
Seeking peace about the sinking, Felix anonymously visits Becky for spiritualist sessions in March 1953. During one, Becky channels Augie Varick’s spirit and delivers a message of love and endurance.
In 1954, Margaret finds a secret note Felix drafted to Augie. Confronted, Felix confesses his true sexual identity and his love for Augie. Margaret responds by confessing her 1945 affair with Cal.
Margaret then confronts Cal in a park and reveals that Tom is his biological son. Refusing to live a lie, she leaves letters for Felix and Becky, abandons Bonhomie, leaves eight-year-old Tom in Felix’s sole care, and moves permanently to Columbus.
Devastated by Margaret’s letter, Cal and Becky separate temporarily. Cal moves into a small apartment above a bakery on Jones Street for nearly two years before they reconcile in 1956.
Everett’s house on Compton Road burns down in August 1953. He moves in with Cal, Becky, and Skip and joins the “Zane Grey Boys” book club at Fink’s until his peaceful death in October 1964.
Skip Jenkins and Tom Salt grow up as close childhood friends in Bonhomie, entirely unaware that they are half-brothers.
In 1967, Skip enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is deployed to Vietnam and killed in action during the Battle of Huế in early 1968 when his transport vehicle hits a landmine.
Tom attends Toledo University and becomes an anti-war radio programmer and activist. In May 1970, following the national draft lottery, Felix, Cal, and Becky decide to reveal the truth of Tom’s parentage to the twenty-four-year-old.
Overwhelmed by the decades of deception, Tom retreats to Columbus and tracks down Margaret at the Lazarus department store. He watches her from afar, receives her apology on the sidewalk, embraces her, and leaves without re-entering her life.
In 1975, Felix Salt is diagnosed with terminal emphysema. Tom returns to Bonhomie to help care for him alongside Felix’s longtime partner, Bishop, as well as Cal and Becky.
Felix dies in August 1976. Margaret returns for the funeral but arrives after the burial. She meets Tom outside Cal and Becky’s house, where they share a final embrace of mutual forgiveness.
In May 1981, Cal and Becky travel to Huron, Ohio, and Cedar Point for Becky’s 60th birthday. Cal gives Becky the sealed letter she wrote to her sixty-year-old self in 1929, when she was eight.
Riding the double Ferris wheel and the Gemini roller coaster overlooking Lake Erie, Cal reflects on his deformity, his past mistakes, and their enduring marriage.
Who Is Buckeye For?
Buckeye is likely to appeal to readers of historical fiction set during and after the World War II era, particularly those drawn to home-front life rather than combat narratives alone.
Readers who follow multigenerational family sagas built around long-held secrets, hidden paternity, and gradual reconciliation will find those elements central to the plot.
The book also suits readers interested in small-town Midwestern settings, industrial and agricultural community life, and the social shifts between the 1940s and the early 1980s.
Because the narrative is character-driven and moves chronologically across six decades, it favors readers comfortable with a slower, perspective-shifting pace rather than a single continuous plotline.
Those interested in spiritualism and mediumship as a story element, and in depictions of closeted identity in mid-century America, will also find those subjects woven throughout.
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Characters in Buckeye
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Calvin “Cal” Jenkins | Main protagonist, classified 4-F in WWII, later manager of Hanover Hardware; husband of Becky and biological father of Tom. |
| Rebecca “Becky” Hanover Jenkins | Cal’s wife, a spiritualist and medium who conducts séances in Bonhomie as a “Spirit Liaison”; mother of Skip. |
| Everett B. Jenkins | Cal’s father, a World War I veteran and eccentric hoarder living on Compton Road. |
| Margaret Salt (born Margaret Anderson) | Orphan raised at Open Arms Orphanage; wife of Felix, mother of Tom, who leaves Bonhomie in 1954. |
| Felix Salt | Executive at Tuck & Sons and later worker at Van Benton Furniture; WWII survivor of the SS James Teague who raises Tom alone. |
| Calvin “Skip” Jenkins Jr. | Cal and Becky’s son, born 1944; killed in action at the Battle of Huế in 1968. |
| Thomas “Tom” Aquinas Salt | Son of Margaret and Cal, raised by Felix; college radio programmer and anti-war activist. |
| Lydia Verts | Administrator of Open Arms Orphanage in Doyle and surrogate mother to Margaret. |
| Augustus “Augie” Varick | Navy seaman from Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and Felix’s love interest aboard the SS James Teague. |
| Roman & Ida Hanover | Becky’s parents; Roman owns Hanover Hardware. |
| Casey LaGrange | Travelling spiritualist promoter who attempts to exploit Becky and is driven out of town. |
| Bishop | Felix’s friend, fellow veteran, and romantic partner in his later years. |
| Mrs. Dodson | Taft Street neighbor who lost her husband and son in WWII and introduces clients to Becky’s séances. |
Beneath the Surface: What the Book Centers On
| Theme | How the book presents it |
|---|---|
| Secrets, Paternity, and the Solitude of Lies | Felix’s closeted sexuality, Margaret and Cal’s affair, and Tom’s hidden parentage remain concealed for years, isolating each person who holds them. |
| Grief, War Trauma, and Lingering Shadows | Everett, Felix, Sam Liddick, and Skip each carry wartime experiences that reshape their families and domestic lives. |
| Forgiveness and Reconciliation | Reconciliation between Cal and Becky, and between Tom and Margaret, occurs gradually over years rather than in a single moment. |
| Identity and Belonging | Bonhomie’s distinct neighborhoods, the Open Arms Orphanage, and Columbus’s anonymity shape how characters define themselves. |
| Spiritualism and Grief | Becky’s séances, including the channeled message from Augie Varick, become a means by which characters confront losses they cannot otherwise voice. |
Quotes from Buckeye
“We’re each meant for a special thing…”
— Sean Robison speaking to young Cal Jenkins during morning assembly, referring to their respective physical limitations.
“The unraveling of time should be mysterious, don’t you think?”
— Becky Hanover speaking to Cal Jenkins outside the Bonhomie Bijou while handing him a sealed letter to her future sixty-year-old self.
“The things that we love tell us what we are.”
— Quoted by Augie Varick to Felix Salt during their time on Espiritu Santo, later cited by Felix when naming Tom.
“He says he loves you, Felix. He wants you to know that. And he says this—that you have to keep swimming. You’re the one in the water, and you’re the one who has to swim.”
— Becky Jenkins delivering the channeled spirit message from Augie Varick to Felix Salt during a séance.
“Therein, she thought, lies the unbearable solitude of a lie: you’re alone when you tell it, alone when you live it, alone when you try to dismantle it.”
— Margaret Salt reflecting on her marriage and secret affair after being confronted by Felix.
“We aren’t living in the past; the past is living in us. And it’s talking. We get old to be able to recalibrate everything we thought was going to be important. We get old just to hear it. It says, the days, the days, the days.”
— Cal Jenkins reflecting on aging, memory, and loss while at Cedar Point with Becky on her 60th birthday.
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Story Snapshot
- Genre & Subgenre: Historical Fiction / Multigenerational Family Saga / Small-Town Literary Drama
- Core Narrative Tropes: Small-town secrets, hidden paternity, closeted identity, war trauma, domestic drama, spiritualism and mediumship
- Tone & Atmosphere: Elegiac, intimate, empathetic, lyrical, and quietly observant
- Primary Conflict: The clash between personal desire and societal expectations, compounded by wartime trauma, hidden paternity, and unexpressed grief across two generations
- Pacing Style: Character-driven, multi-decadal epic spanning 1918 through 1981, with shifting perspectives and chronological progression
- Publisher: Random House
- Publication Date: September 2, 2025
- ISBN-10: 0593595033
- ISBN-13: 978-0593595039
- Pages: 464
- Book Structure: 3 parts and 25 chapters — Part I (Chapters 1–8), Part II (Chapters 9–18), Part III (Chapters 19–25), followed by Acknowledgments and About the Author
- Author Background: Patrick Ryan is an American fiction writer and the author of the novel Send Me and the story collection The Dream Life of Astronauts.
Books Like Buckeye
Empire Falls by Richard Russo — A Pulitzer Prize-winning small-town drama about family secrets, generational shifts, and local industrial history.
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo — A multigenerational saga centered on long-held family secrets, hidden parentage, and complex marital bonds.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett — An atmospheric multi-decade narrative examining sibling relationships, abandoned children, memory, and domestic inheritance.
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner — A quiet exploration of two couples navigating lifelong friendship, marriage, and personal vulnerabilities.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout — An interconnected portrait of small-town domestic lives, quiet griefs, and hidden heartbreaks.
