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A Novel (Sep 2025) - Frenuyum - 12-02-2025
Hailed as “an American epic” (NPR), this captivating story weaves the intimate lives of two midwestern families across generations, from World War II to the late twentieth century.
“I love this book with my entire heart.”—Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
One town. Two families. A secret that changes everything.
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. Against the backdrop of some of the most transformative decades in modern America, the consequences of that long-ago encounter ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to reexamine who they thought they were and what the future might hold.
Sweeping yet intimate, rich with piercing observation and the warmth that comes from profound understanding of the human spirit, Buckeye captures the universal longing for love and for goodness.
Quote: A sweeping story that starts in the 1920’s through to the 1970’s, in a town in the mid-west of Bonhomie, Ohio. A story of 2 couples whose lives become entangled.
We meet Cal who is symmetrically misaligned with his legs. Because of this, he is rejected from signing up for the war. Betsy, his wife, is a spiritual healer. She conducts seances to reach the dead to provide closure for her clients. But Cal doesn’t believe what she does is real and hence, a distance grows between them.
Then there is Margaret, who we meet, as a young baby orphaned by her birth mother. Felix, her spouse, is gay but he’s attempted to keep that life separate from theirs until he returns from the war and realizes how difficult the duality has become.
Two boys from each family develop a kindred spirit and become close friends. They become the glue that cements these families together.
Secrets and regrets the cornerstones to each of these characters.
Homosexuality; infidelity; identity; abandonment; grief; ultimately, forgiveness.
And time. A luxury we think we all have. Sometimes it seems to stretch out eternally; and at other times, its end is abrupt.