My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the chance to read this book before publication.

I enjoyed the writing style. It's not verbose, but is not so concise that it takes away from the joy of reading a novel. I was impressed by the attention to detail, which is well-suited for any story, but especially to ones like Evensong. I also enjoy how we get to know the characters better; the exposition unfolds well.

The characters are all in their twilight years, and the book takes on a similar tone. The plot is simple - the everyday occurrences of ordinary people, touching on age humbling people. I was invested in their stories, especially that of Arlene's, whose POV chapters were always so raw and heartfelt.

"She couldn't be sure of anything anymore, but what hurt worse was that they saw her as unreliable, Kitzi leaving her off the schedule when she'd told her she was free. All she wanted was to be useful."

Overall, a heartwarming read that is grounded in reality.

Stewart O'Nan is a favorite author with his calm, intelligent prose of everyday people living everyday lives.

This is a thoughtful story of older women (approx. 63-85 years old) who are widowed or divorced trying to live interesting and worthwhile lives.
Four of these women are the main characters supporting each other as life gets more challenging. They go to the same church, play bridge weekly and are members of the Humpty Dumpty Club that helps those needing rides to doctor's appointments, hospital visits, shopping for groceries, meals, etc. etc. They tirelessly support those in their church family and community every day.

As they handle setbacks for others and themselves they learn more about each other and the world around them. This will appeal more to those in the over 60 group who can relate to their adventures or will get a taste for future challenges we might all face.

Done with love and honesty by the eloquent Mr. O'Nan.

I never expected that I would like this book! Sure, it isn't all sunshine and rainbows but woah I am impressed!!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. Evensong is a gentle, cozy story of a group of older women in Pittsburgh. They go by the name The Humpty Dumpties and are committed to helping each other through daily ups and downs of growing old and its challenges. There is nothing harsh or any major dramas in Evensong and it includes characters in Stewart O'Nan's previous novels - Henry, Himself and Emily, Alone.
The daily lives of a group of older women may seem mundane to some but as a woman of a certain age I see how and why this story was written and Stewart O'Nan is one of the best authors at writing female characters.

Stewart O'Nan made me fall in love with the premise of the Humpty Dumpty Club! A wonderful group of people who help one another out in the town of Pittaburgh. With wonderful characterization, I quickly read through this novel and adored it. I dod t want it to end.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This was such a precious and heartwarming novel. It makes me feel better about my golden years. This book made me smile at the friendships these women have at their age and how they look out for each other. It’s rare to have a book focus on that time in life which is what makes this novel all the more special.

touching, cozy chapter-based novel emphasizing the miniature arcs as opposed to the overall story setting. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

I had some misgivings at the very start of the novel (I had trouble distinguishing the protagonists from one another for longer than I would have liked) but was won over by the quiet way the characters engaged with their setting, a mostly church-based community in a corner of Pittsburgh. O’Nan grants grace to each woman in his central quartet as they make conscious decisions about how to live out the last decades of their lives, and I found the work they put into this, in both body and mind, deeply moving. His framing is also lovely, even if you’re not well versed in choral music.

There were also clever questions and plot points that kept me reading, including some ambiguity around Joan, who sets the plot in motion but then becomes either a red herring or a foil – you decide!

My two quibbles are the corny chapter headings and the paucity of physical description of the women, which is one reason it took me so long to remember who was who. Even a few details of what each looked like – or an age, without having to do any math (we get a few references to a possible range of birthdates) – would have been helpful without steering the reader too much, I think.

A Community of Aging

It’s difficult, and dangerous, to grow old alone.

Stewart O’Nan knows this, as do the ladies of Pittsburgh’s Humpty Dumpty Club in his novel Evensong. Their group’s mission is to help their fellow aging seniors to negotiate life as they face the everyday challenges of increasing frailty, decreasing mobility, failing strength, and/or declining cognition, within an ever smaller circle of acquaintance.

The five HDs (as they call themselves) provide rides, pick up prescriptions, do welfare checks, help folks downsize and move, and arrange all manner of services when others need help of whatever kind to remain as independent as they can. Each woman has her own challenges, her own living situation, and a distinct personality, but they are bound together by their mission and need to be useful, as well as their long-time membership in their Episcopal church.

It’s an episodic book with mostly short chapters that explore the lives and concerns of each woman. The overarching narrative, which is more of a frame for the novel than a real driving force, begins when their leader and master administrator, Joan, has a nasty fall that incapacitates her, and the other four need to soldier on without her, not knowing when or if she will be able to take the reins again. This has the greatest consequence for Kitzi, whom Joan has tapped for the leadership role, and she struggles to find a balance between leadership and delegation. The others struggle with more personal issues—Arlene with signs of her own cognitive impairment, Emily with trusting her alcoholic daughter, and Susie with low self-esteem and dating after her divorce.

Personally, I’ve always been attracted to older characters, probably because their experience is long and more complicated by memory. O’Nan gives us four marvelous character studies in Evensong. I was impressed with his ability to bring the HD women to life by exploring the reality of aging with clear-eyed curiosity and empathy. These women are to be admired and not pitied, even when bad things happen or they feel they are failures.

Readers who know Pittsburgh well have many pleasures in store—the sense of place and time is delightful. Readers who look for a plot with lots of forward momentum are likely to get frustrated with the slow progress of the narrative through-line. What kept me reading was my affection for the characters, the realism of their individual challenges and dilemmas, and their dedication to one another and to creating a community through service.

With thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Monthly Press for providing access to an advance copy.

This is another title in O'Nan's Emily Maxwell series and I think it's his best work. It follows octogenarian Emily and her friends in the Humpty Dumpty Club, a group of older women who band together to assist members of their community and each other. It works as a stand alone novel, but now I want to go back and reread the earlier books. You will love this group of women. And O'Nan paints a vivid picture of Pittsburgh. This would also be a good choice for book discussion groups.

Stewart O’Nan reliably delivers a good human interest story including both the foibles and the quiet heroism in his characters. He is particularly talented at life reviews for those of a certain age.

This is the story of a group of church friends who call the folks they take on to support in illness and decline the Humpty Dumptys (HDs). They are bonded by their church and their friendship and the care they provide to others. They differ politically but agree to disagree in a way that I think many of us are doing right now in 2025.

The first third of the book meanders a bit and I was a bit confused about some of the relationships between the characters - sister in law, ex-husband, deceased husband, adult child, grandchildren, etc. I had to go back and re-read some parts.

I particularly enjoyed the last third which involved discerning just how much we can do for others who don’t seem to be able to help themselves or be responsible for the choices they make. There is one rather concerning “HD project” that isn’t resolved at the end, and that seemed a weakness of the book for me. Not that we need everything tied up in a bow, but what happens to the cats and their human takes up a lot of the middle of the book.

This book found me at a time when I’m considering my own involvement in caring for others - how much is too much and how much is just what we ought to do as “Christians” or simply as decent human beings - so I appreciated those themes.

I also wonder about the decline in church attendance and how that will impact aging and community. It seems we throw the baby out with the bath water when we lose our faith communities.

This is a 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

How does Stewart O'Nan continue to tell such realistic stories of ordinary American women of a certain age? And make them your friends and neighbors? The Humpty Dumpty Club keep busy and useful attending choir practice, baking cookies, caring for pets, and picking up prescriptions - anything to help each other with everyday life. We follow the four primary members as they pick up the slack for each other and interact daily sharing opinions, giving advice and helping - always helping. The author revisits beloved characters from his past work - over a dozen books. Sit back and join the club!

There was so much I enjoyed about this book, that I’m not sure where to begin.
I guess first off, although it’s set in the US, it felt relatable to me as a UK reader. Probably because of the backdrop of a faith community which very much mirrors some of my own church experiences.
What else? Well, whilst I did struggle initially with getting my head round who was who (it took me a few chapters to realise that Emily and Arlene are sisters-in-law for example), once the characters were fixed in my brain I very much enjoyed their relationships with one another (Arlene’s attitude to Emily’s dog Angus, Susie’s gradual warming to Joan’s cat Oscar.)
The themes of living, ageing, dying, family relationships, dementia, illness, politics, love, loss, are woven together with a light touch but at the same time felt very real.
There were no massive ‘aha’ or shock moments, just the passing of time, of a bringing to the fore of four women’s experiences (impacting upon and impacted by those around them) as they navigate the later years of their lives.
And though I’m not at even Susie’s age yet, I am only too aware of how quickly time passes. This book will be one that I’m sure I will return to as my own story unfolds, and as some of their experiences become some of mine.
A comforting, gentle, truthful read.

My sincere gratitude to #netgalley #atlanticmonthly.press #groveatlantic and to #stewartonan for the opportunity to read and review EVENSONG - O'Nan's newest novel, written in tightly interconnected/linked short stories, This has been my favorite genre to read for decades -- introduced to me by writers like Liz Strout and Melissa Bank -- and it proved to be the perfect mechanism for moving the plot lines of the primary characters forward covering a larger swath of space and time.

This format best reflects the nature of our day-to-day life in its quietest and most relatable ways; the interconnectedness of everything. And I'm grateful that this style of storytelling seems to be growing in popularity.

I've read most of Stewart O'Nan's work and he is a powerful storyteller -- a creator of enduring and memorable characters and compelling plots. A few of these novels have been turned into marvelous motion pictures and I believe this newest collection has the same big screen potential.

#Evensong is a magnificent tribute to growing older with the people who know and love us best - our friends! It is a love letter to enduring (and new!) friendships and to O'Nan's native Pittsburgh (especially the East End) not far from where I currently live. His depiction of people, places, and events (including fairly recent current events) in and around Pittsburgh are spot-on -- an added bonus if you are familiar with them..

O'Nan's attention to detail is outstanding. There are, for example, multiple stories and plot lines in which dogs or cats play a large role and the author's use of language to describe the mannerisms and behaviors of pets is perfect. I guarantee there will not be a pet-loving reader who isn't left nodding and smiling in complicit understanding. This is a gift of Stewart O'Nan's (and the pinnacle of great writing): the ability to bring the most mundane and seemingly simple things to life in ways that -- weeks, months, and years later -- they are still written in my mind.

These stories conjure the seasons, sentiments, landmarks, and lives of a special group of people — The Humpty Dumpty Club -- group of women who are navigating the challenges of their golden years, with and without partners, children, pets. In the company and service of one another and lived with a love and compassion we seldom get to witness in our current world.

This novel is a testament to the fact that, in the words of Ram Dass, we are ALL just “walking each other home.” That the traits we have from our youth tend to endure -- the caretaker, the risk-taker, the worrier, etc. -- they never go away. They come into play (for better or for worse -- but usually better!) well into our later years in the relationships we continue to navigate.

#EVENSONG is a marvelous collection of stories featuring a handful of the most vivid, vibrant, vulnerable, and resilient women I’ve ever read (set in Pittsburgh during this pivotal past decade. And as mentioned the timeliness of the stories is a tangible thread throughout. Emily Maxwell is a repeat character (another gem of a component in interconnected stories and novels). Like Strout's Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Dalton, the ladies of the Humpty Dumpty Club will nestle into your mind and heart and I hope to see some of them (in some iteration) again in the future. The love that the author has for these Pittsburgh-based characters shines through in every story. 🖤✨💛 I thoroughly recommend Evensong -- Pub date: 11/11/2025.

This story is primarily about a group of older women (ages 61-89) who have created the “Humpty Dumpty Club” to take care of each other and to take care of their church member friends who need assistance as they age. The story centers around several women: one who has the first signs of dementia, one who is hospitalized after a fall, one (the youngest) who is dating using a dating app, and one who is caring for her ill husband. While each of them has their own trials and tribulations, we also learn about the people who these women help. Throughout the story, there is also a focus on their church choir, which is important because that is how the group originally came together.
There isn't a lot that happens in this book, but it doesn't feel slow. I really enjoyed the theme of people taking care of each other in a community created just for that. The individual lives of each of the characters and those they helped were interesting (ex., a hoarder couple) and the reader is provided with interesting insights into the difficulties that come with aging at home.
However, there were central parts of the book that I didn't care for, mostly because I was unfamiliar with them: the references to their church and their choir. I felt like an observer without the proper training when the book delved into the choir themes. In addition to religious and organ references, which were foreign to me, the references to the musical scores and why they were relevant were inexplicable: Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Rather than being able to learn about a whole new world I was unfamiliar with, I felt completely left out. Even reading this on a Kindle, looking up terms like “kyrie” with ease, did little to bring me into the conversation.
Thank you NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy.

<i>“they felt that urgency now, the need to finally make things right, or as right as they could be. They had only so much time.

Together they knelt and bowed their heads. Outside night had fallen. A fine snow was sifting down, silting the windshields, coating the roads.

They prayed for Pittsburgh . . .”</i>

Readers familiar with O’Nan’s Emily Maxwell series of novels will be pleased to see the now quite elderly Emily and her sister-in-law, Arlene, in this new character “ensemble” piece. <i><b>Evensong</i></b> opens with Joan, the president of the Humpty Dumpty Club—the “HDs”—having a catastrophic fall and ending up in the hospital with a life-changing lower-limb fracture. The Humpty Dumpties are a group of still able older women affiliated with Calvary, an Episcopalian/Anglican church in Pittsburgh, who help out congregation members in need. (They do this in part because they recognize that they themselves will require assistance soon enough.) With Joan now sidelined, her friend Kitzi takes the reins, assigning caregiving duties to the remaining mobile HDs. Among the services performed: ferrying people to medical appointments, collecting and delivering prescriptions, getting groceries, sitting with the dying, and even arranging funerals.

O’Nan presents chapters from the points of view of four women: Kitzi herself, who’s struggling to look after her husband, Martin, a man with a serious heart condition; Susie, the baby of the group, who, at 63 and relatively recently divorced, is trying to make a new life for herself; the conservative, no-nonsense Emily, Henry Maxwell’s widow, who continues to live in the home where the two raised their children; and, finally, the never-married Arlene, an extroverted former schoolteacher, who is struggling with incipient dementia.

Although Kitzi initially feels overwhelmed and even put-upon in the HD leadership role—assigning tasks mostly to Susie, Emily, and Arlene but also to unnamed others who don’t figure in the story—she is reluctant to delegate responsibility. This irks Emily, who is determined to be regarded as competent and to remain relevant, even if she’s not that keen on carrying out the duties themselves. Over the course of the novel, Arlene becomes increasingly unreliable: she requires reminders to take others to appointments she’s agreed to, misplaces her wallet when she goes grocery shopping for a shut-in, and eventually loses her bearings when driving through the city in which she has spent her entire life. Kitzi takes on the lion’s share of the work, looking after a pair of former music professors who are in decline. Gene and Jean are serious hoarders of stuff (including innumerable cats) and live in absolute squalor. Susie, meanwhile, cares for Joan’s skittish cat, Oscar, until his owner moves into an assisted-living facility, the last station on her life’s journey.

Not all of O’Nan’s novel is dedicated to the work the women do for others. He also details each character’s inner workings (memories, regrets—and, in one case, secrets). The friends’ relationships with each other are described, as is their long membership in the church, where they once sang in the choir. (Susie, the youngest, continues to do so.)

Except for the segments focusing on church events, which were slow-going for me, I found this an immersive and satisfying read. (Perhaps not surprisingly, given the novel’s title, there’s quite a lot about the sacred music performed and the elements of the Anglican service.) This is the fifth of O’Nan’s many novels I’ve read. Though accessible, his work is never lightweight. The novels are consistently unshowy, intelligent, and insightful, with convincing, well-drawn characters. The focus here, of course, is on the women’s poignant efforts to find meaning and purpose, knowing they are nearing the end. The melancholy tone is leavened by gentle, humorous interludes: details about the eccentric ex-spouse of one of the hoarders and Susie’s forays into the world of online dating, for example.

While I don’t think the book is quite as strong as the two other books I’ve read which more fully feature Emily and Arlene Maxwell, I still enjoyed and recommend it. It is a quiet, reflective, character-driven work, focusing on elders, so it’s likely not for everyone. But most of us do live to grow older, and anyone willing to acknowledge and contemplate that reality will appreciate O’Nan’s novel.

Rating: 3.5 rounded up.

As a woman of a certain age whose hometown is Pittsburgh, I dove into the ARC of Stewart O’Nan’s Evensong. Thank you, Grove Press and NetGalley. I also should mention that O’Nan is the nephew of my second-grade teacher, circa 1962, who was renowned for the inventive disciplinary techniques she deployed (including on me) at Turner School in Wilkinsburg.

So I am the perfect niche reader for Evensong, a quiet novel that is almost a series of character studies or vignettes. There is a faint strain of a storyline running through it. Joan, the relentlessly efficient leader of the Humpty Dumpty Club, is incapacitated by a fall. The club runs errands and offers rides and other volunteer services for parishioners of their Episcopal church. A few of the characters starred in previous O’Nan novels, and there is a continuity here as the characters age.

It took me a while to straighten out all the characters. Kitzi takes on the leadership of the club, so fervently that she ministers to a couple of extreme hoarders who are outside their church circle. Emily was featured in O’Nan’s Emily, Alone. Her sister-in-law is Arlene, a retired teacher who is starting to suffer the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Susie is a bit younger; she has a fondness for Vicodin and manages to enjoy sex regularly—with a musician! And there is a host of children and grandchildren, thirty or so cats that belong to the hoarders, and a couple more pets who have bit parts throughout the novel.

Joan, rehabilitating, assigns the hoarders Jean and Gene to Kitzi. They are concert pianists who taught at Chatham University, and the husband is diagnosed with cancer. The lengths that Kitzi goes to for this couple, often neglecting her homebound husband, stretched credulity a bit for me. Her motivation was unclear. The club routinely performed tasks such as picking up prescriptions and offering rides to the doctor. Now Kitzi is scrambling to get thirty cats vaccinated, transporting them in her car to a rural county; spending long hours with Jean at her husband’s hospital bedside; and eventually cleaning out the infested house.

The chapters describe what seem like routine events in their lives. But I could relate to the aging friends, incrementally losing mobility and freedom while the world goes on around them. In one chapter, Susie is gamely trying to plan a trip downtown for them to enjoy the Christmas market. “They’d always wanted to go, yet, whether it was too cold out or they were too busy getting ready for the holidays or their husbands weren’t interested, none of them had ever been.” In a leap of faith, Susie pays in advance for parking. I laughed at the doomed attempt to get everyone on the same page, arguing over where they would eat, fending off illness, worrying about the weather. Spoiler alert: The trip did not happen.
Arlene babysits Emily’s dog, Angus, and her description of the dog’s drooling psychopathic neediness was hilarious to me, who had just completed a dog-sitting assignment:

“It was this manic intensity that annoyed her, his urgency shamelessly self-centered. He was like a child, all raw need. She fed him every day, yet he raced for the back door as if he were starving, mussing the rug so she couldn’t open it.” Woman and dog come to terms by the end of the chapter.
They are all active in their local Episcopal church in the Shadyside neighborhood, and the novel ends on New Year’s Day with the traditional Evensong service. The novel itself is a series of canticles, quiet odes to these women who soldier on with friendships, declining health, tender mercies, problematic families, slobbery dogs, and the knowledge that the end is ever closer. O’Nan does a masterful job of chronicling their everyday lives in a tender way that makes us care.

“It was true, they felt that urgency now, the need to finally make things right, or as right as they could be. They only had so much time.”

I enjoy Stewart O'Nan's writing and how he can take ordinary circumstances and reveal their quiet beauty. This novel is no exception -- it follows a group of elderly friends who care for each other in everyday actions like picking up medications and wellness checks. As is typical for O'Nan's novels, nothing momentous happens in these pages. However, if you enjoy quiet, reflective books that cause you to consider your own life in a way you might not have thought of before, I highly recommend this novel. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. Pud Date: Nov 11th, 2025.

#Evensong

I just finished! Man, it was so good. I really like revisiting Arlene--I really liked when she reminisced about Henry when they were young. I feel now very attached to Jean and Gene and want more about them. I really like the idea that they would be dismissed by people as being "gross hoarders" but then you find out that they are these incredibly accomplished musicians. I really love that hidden reality. The way that O'Nan tells the intimae innerworkings of everyday people is my exact favorite fiction. O'Nan and Strout do it best. Thank you for another wonderful book.

I couldn’t really get into this- it was too slow, there were too many characters and so I couldn’t keep track of who was who and it was just too ploddy really for my liking.