The Code of Buddyhood

by William Bernhardt

Ten years after their undergraduate years together, Bobby Beresford and Mark Szasz meet again at a college reunion and are forced to reopen old wounds and confront painful secrets.

Paperback

First published January 4, 1993

About the author

William Bernhardt is the author of over sixty books, including the bestselling Daniel Pike and Ben Kincaid legal thrillers, the historical novels Challengers of the Dust and Nemesis, three books of poetry, and the ten Red Sneaker books on fiction writing.

In addition, Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writers Center to mentor aspiring writers. The Center hosts an annual writers conference (WriterCon), small-group seminars, a monthly newsletter, and a bi-weekly podcast. More than three dozen of Bernhardt’s students have subsequently published with major houses. He is also the owner of Balkan Press, which publishes poetry and fiction as well as the literary journal Conclave.

Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award eighteen times in three different categories, and has won the award twice. Library Journal called him “the master of the courtroom drama.” The Vancouver Sun called him “the American equivalent of P.G. Wodehouse and John Mortimer.”

In addition to his novels and poetry, he has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and puzzles. He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.”

In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, paragliding, scuba diving, caving, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. In 2013, he became a Jeopardy! champion winning over $20,000.

When Bernhardt delivered the keynote address at the San Francisco Writers Conference, chairman Michael Larsen noted that in addition to penning novels, Bernhardt can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”

Reviews

[Rick Ludwig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although not the first book published by best selling author Bill Bernhardt, The Code of Buddyhood, is probably his earliest attempt at a complete novel. Reading such an early work, one enjoys a fascinating window into the development of a great author. Already here are the intriguing and realistically flawed characters of the later books as well as finely crafted scenes of interpersonal reaction and personality development. The linearity of the plot is probably its greatest weakness. Seeing the characters in college and then again in adulthood is fine. If written today,though, Bernhardt might have thrown us first into the deep end of their troubled latter day reunion. This would have made the reader anxious to understand how they got where they are, which could have been gradually explained through remembrance of their earlier days together. But that is just a style point. For me the strongest portion of the book was the first half. This depiction of the college years of two roommates rang so true, despite some "antics" that pushed the bounds of mischievous behavior. Bobby and Mark and the young women they pursued were full of believability and their interactions with one another were full of the bravado and insecurity of people in that time at that age. The second half of the book, though equally well crafted seemed to falter a bit in plot progression. The small flaws stand out here, because all of the later works from this author completely lack them. Reading this does remind me of how well Bernhardt crafts his characters, a fact that may be obscured in later works with more dramatic action. It was clear even at this early stage that this author had something to tell us and a unique ability to do so.

[Jonathan Sweet · Rating 4 out of 5]

First things first - this is a very different book than Bernhardt's typical fare. Not a lawyer or court case to be found. So go in knowing that.

This is also the first book he wrote (although not published) and it is definitely the work of a beginning novelist. That said, has some worthwhile features

[Jann P. LeCroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time well spent

This is a remarkable book. The life lessons are profound but not rammed down your throat. Instead they are carefully woven into a truly unique yet simple tale of two friends. Time well spent.