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An intimate, moving novel that follows The Humpty Dumpty Club, a group of women of a certain age who band together to help one another and their circle of friends in Pittsburgh as they face the challenges of their golden years.
The Humpty Dumpty Club is distraught when their powerhouse leader, Joan Hargrove, takes a bad fall down her stairs, knocking her out of commission. Now, as well as running errands and shepherding those less able to their doctors' appointments, they have to pick up the slack.
Between navigating their own relationships and aging bodies and attending choir practice, these invisible yet indomitable women help where they can. They bake cookies, they care for pets, they pick up prescriptions, they sit vigil by the sick, and most of all, they show up for the people they've pledged to help. In the face of death, divorce, and the myriad directions our lives can take, the Humpty Dumpty club represents the power of community and chosen family.
Weaving together the perspectives of the four cardinal members as they tend to those in need, Stewart O'Nan revisits beloved characters from his past work -- most notably Emily Maxwell -- to fashion a rich and moving novel that celebrates our capacity for patience and care. Vivid, warm, and often wryly funny, Evensong reminds us that life is made up of moments both climactic and quotidian, and we weather those moments with the people we choose to keep close.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/04/2025)
...y ever do but it wasn't grabbing me and lack of quotation marks in dialogue confused me. Last week I read two books focusing on friendship and aging, Evensong by Stewart O'Nan (4 stars) and Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer (somewhere between 3-4 stars for me)
-Evonne_Benedict
"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." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Fans of Kent Haruf's Our Souls at Night and Elizabeth Strout's Olive, Again will appreciate the dignity O'Nan affords his characters as they navigate both the dramatic and the mundane moments in their lives. —Booklist (starred review)
"O'Nan once again finds extraordinary resonance in the lives of ordinary people…[He] 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." —Publishers Weekly
"What a great writer is Stewart O'Nan, and Evensong is one of his best: A beautifully structured, wonderfully nuanced story of a quartet of women negotiating friendships, rivalries, cats and dogs, frailty, and even new love as they slide into old age. This portrait of the so-called golden years displays O'Nan's unmatchable talent for imbuing even the smallest moment with humor and sympathy. Excellent and unforgettable." —Kate Walbert, author of The Sunken Cathedral, Our Kind, and His Favorites
This information about Evensong was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Stewart O'Nan is the author of numerous books, including Wish You Were Here, Everyday People, In the Walled City, The Speed Queen, and Emily, Alone. His 2007 novel, Last Night at the Lobster, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in Boston.
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