Stewart O'Nan's body of work is noteworthy for its diversity across 18 works of fiction, with settings that include post-Civil War Wisconsin, Jerusalem on the eve of Israel's statehood, and a failed Red Lobster restaurant in contemporary Connecticut. Throughout, however, he has displayed a special fondness for Pittsburgher Emily Maxwell, first seen in his 2002 novel, Wish You Were Here. She makes a fourth appearance in Evensong, a frank but deeply sympathetic portrait of a quartet of aging women who demonstrate that the challenges of advanced years need not impede one's ability to do good in the world.
Evensong centers on the work of Emily and three other women--her sister-in-law, Arlene, and their friends Kitzi and Susie (younger than the others by about 20 years), members of a volunteer network they call the Humpty Dumpty Club. The group performs a variety of tasks for older people needing assistance in their Pittsburgh neighborhoods. In the autumn of 2022, they're thrown into crisis when their longtime leader, Joan Hargrove, is hospitalized after a fall, and Kitzi is anointed as her successor.
As O'Nan (Songs for the Missing) constructs a credible plot, all the while he's digging below the surface to reveal how each woman copes with the often harsh realities of age. O'Nan renders their small victories and defeats with honesty and more than occasional wit. Despite the inevitable emotion it engenders, Evensong is noteworthy for its lack of sentimentality. Emily and her cohort are admirable survivors, resolutely absorbing the blows that life administers in one's waning years, yet rising each morning with gratitude to greet another day. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer