If you’re looking for a respite from this mixed up, muddled up, shook up world…

I recommend this book.

Which I was hesitant about in the beginning, because it’s a “Read with Jenna Pick.” Not that I knew this when I reserved it on Libby a few months back after reading a review in the “New York Times,” but oftentimes the books Jenna recommends are relatively lowbrow and unsatisfying, I won’t quite say time-killers, but I’m looking for soul-fulfillment in my reading more than just warm feelings.

But not long after I started I stopped. And then read and stopped again. Because, you see, one of the characters was clairvoyant.

Maybe that’s not the exactly right word. Becky can connect with people from the past. A spiritualist? I don’t know, but I’ve got no time for this stuff…I’m rooted in reality. And for that reason I’ve got absolutely no interest in fantasy and rarely am entranced by science fiction. I know, I know, you like “Dark” and so many streaming shows…but they’re not my thing.

So I’m going to read a 451 page book that turns on a character communing with the other side?

I don’t think so.

But giving “Buckeye” one more go I got hooked. Turns out that the spiritualist element ends up being a relatively minor theme in this saga about America. Which starts just prior to the Second World War and then plays out through the lives of the earliest baby boomers.

Based in Ohio…in sleepy Bonhomie, you ultimately see the town flourish in the boom of the fifties and sixties. If you lived through this era, you recognize the optimism, and then the looming Vietnam War. That’s one thing young ‘uns never had to worry about…getting drafted. Never mind fighting and dying or coming back with no acceptance, no kudos. The government was disconnected from the public just like today, but instead of fearing you were going to get shipped overseas to fight, now you’re worried about being deported.

Now not everybody is born to set the world on fire. Today’s “news” is littered with people trying to become rich and famous. The opportunity is vast, even though the odds are low. But just living your life was enough back in the late forties and fifties. You wanted a marriage, kids, a job, good times.. Being average was not a sentence, but what most people wanted and were happy with.

So we’ve got the war. Actually three wars… II, Korea and Vietnam. And the men who go and either come back or don’t. And the women wait for their return.

And the depiction of the World War II era…

One of the hottest recent books is Kristin Hannah’s “The Women”…which is phenomenal when it deals with war, but is nearly two-dimensional when the main character returns to the U.S. This is not “Buckeye”… “Buckeye” focuses less on what happens overseas, although it does a good job, but when the focus returns to the U.S., it’s far superior to “The Women.”

So if you liked “The Women”…

“Buckeye” is a saga. It doesn’t start where it ends up. Kind of like the new John Irving book “Queen Esther,” an orphanage figures into the beginning but the plot does not remain there…(I loved the Irving book at first, but it gets twisted up…you’re on your own with “Queen Esther.”)

So you’ve got the orphan who…

“Buckeye” ends up a family drama. With everything from work to passion to internal despair…just like regular life, just like your life.

In a world dominated by “news”…there’s more real life, more truth in “Buckeye” than what you’ll find online.

I don’t want to overhype it, but I love this kind of book…that takes me into another space, separated from everyday reality, yet makes me contemplate life all the while.

As I look at Amazon right now, it says “Buckeye” is:

“ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, People, Minnesota Star Tribune, Chicago Public Library”

But no one has ever mentioned it to me.

Yet it is a best seller.

So if this is the kind of book that appeals to you, one that is not hard to read but tells the story of life…

“Buckeye” is perfect for this period of holiday limbo, you will lose yourself in it.