From the author of Last Night at the Lobster, a moving vision of love and family.
A sequel to the bestselling, much-beloved Wish You Were Here, Stewart O’Nan’s intimate new novel follows Emily Maxwell, a widow whose grown children have long moved away. She dreams of vists by her grandchildren while mourning the turnover of her quiet Pittsburgh neighborhood, but when her sole companion and sister-in-law Arlene faints at their favorite breakfast buffet, Emily’s days change. As she grapples with her new independence, she discovers a hidden strength and realizes that life always offers new possibilities. Like most older women, Emily is a familiar yet invisible figure, one rarely portrayed so honestly. Her mingled feelings-of pride and regret, joy and sorrow- are gracefully rendered in wholly unexpected ways. Once again making the ordinary and overlooked not merely visible but vital to understanding our own lives, Emily, Alone confirms O’Nan as an American master.
pub date: March 17, 2011
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IndieBound |
The Works of Stewart O'Nan 
What I like most about O’Nan’s work is the careful layering of emotion-evoking description that quietly intensifies each story. The effect is a moment, a character, a place that is tangible, ordinary, and still, somehow, full of intensity. As a writer, this skilled description is something I hope one day to be able to cultivate. As a reader, I’m captivated by stories about people who have to pull a little more tightly to make ends meet, people outside the bourgeois.
So yes. I’m so looking forward to this book. If you can see this comment, thank you for writing, Stewart O’Nan.