Evensong

I have not previously read anything by Stewart O'Nan. This is a story without a plot line, rather a series of vignettes revealing the inner and outer lives of 4 aging women who are key players in an organization called the Humpty Dumpties in Pittsburgh. Publishers Weekly offers this good summary and review: O'Nan...once again finds extraordinary resonance in the lives of ordinary people. In Pittsburgh, 89-year-old Joan Hargrove, leader of the Humpty Dumpty Club, a group of elderly women who help each other out, lives the "nightmare" they all share when she falls down a flight of stairs and breaks her leg. With Joan recovering in the hospital, it's left to other club members to fill the void: Kitzi delivers prescriptions to Gene and Jean Sokolov, brother-and-sister hoarders who live with a houseful of cats, and slowly becomes enmeshed in the siblings' lives; Susie, a divorcee, takes care of Joan's cat and finds romance with a retired postal worker who plays in a bluegrass band. Meanwhile, Emily, a recurring character in O'Nan's fiction, is having trouble with her sister-in-law, who is showing the first signs of dementia. The drama here is strictly low-key (a funeral is the emotional high point), but O'Nan proves that he has no peers when it comes to evoking the quotidian challenges and routines of daily life. It's a bittersweet celebration of the twilight years. " 

Kirkus closes their review with these positive comments: "This frank depiction of people nearing the ends of their lives might sound bleak, but O’Nan’s brilliantly rendered characters refuse to be pitied, matter-of-factly accepting loss and physical decline as they go about their days quietly sustained by their faith and commitment to service. Unsentimental yet deeply moving: more wonderful work from the versatile, masterful O’Nan." There are excerpts from multiple review sources here. 

 What left me dissatisfied was the difficulty in figuring out the relationships (besides HD membership) between the primary characters and between them and many of the secondary characters as well as the lack of resolution for some of the crises facing the group.  It was also a challenge at times to know who was speaking in the dialogue exchanges. Apparently there are previous installments that deal with the Maxwell family: Henry Himself and Emily Alone. Seems like it might be advisable to read these before tackling this one. That being said, the characterizations are poignant and rich, the characters' struggles all too real and familiar. His writing merits further investigation.