Publication Date: November 11, 2025

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Old age is one long painful process of “incremental weakening”, writes the American novelist Stewart O’Nan in Evensong, his moving story of four elderly Pittsburgh ladies who find solace in assisting others…few writers evoke everyday pleasures and niggling troubles as successfully as O’Nan. Strout quite rightly called him “the king of the quotidian”.

—Christian House, Financial Times

More than a few lines in Evensong will choke you up, but this is a novel scrubbed of sentimentality and mawkish sadness. Instead, with steely realism, it’s aspirational — not just in terms of living long but living well.

—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Evensong…is many things all at once: part gorgeous meditation, part intense observation, and part walking chronicle of Pittsburgh, a city he clearly holds very close to his heart.

—Christy Gualtieri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Evensong is tender and funny, poignant and true. The novel is a little miracle: here it is, life, on the page.

—Laurie Hertzel, The Boston Globe

“…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.”

— Lindsay Harmon, 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

“Stewart O’Nan has been one of the best chroniclers of the lives of American women.”

—Susan Straight

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.