FICTION

Buckeye

Patrick Ryan

Bloomsbury, $32.99

In the spring of 1920 Cal Jenkins is born in the town of Bonhomie (population 6000), Ohio. Cal is a perfect baby, although one leg is two inches shorter than the other. “Just two inches shorter, but that was enough to make plenty of things difficult.” Things like riding a bike might take twice as long, but Cal has been told by a boy at school that his leg makes him unique in God’s eyes, so he must be he singled out for special things. When Cal asks what his special thing was the boy shrugs and replies that Cal must “wait and see”. Code for life?

That the United States is not New York might arrive as a slight and entirely forgivable shock – we’re all time-pressed and, you know, thinking takes time. I’d never heard of Patrick Ryan until la

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