Check out the great review of Evensong in The Boston Globe!
How does Stewart O’Nan understand so deeply what it feels like to be an elderly woman?
O’Nan’s 19th novel, “Evensong,” follows half a year in the lives of Susie, Kitzi, Emily, and Arlene, four women in the twilight of life. They are the core members of the Humpty Dumpty Club, a large, loosely knit group of older women in Pittsburgh who look out for each other as their lives contract and their independence falters.
Directed by the highly organized Joan — she of the “highlighter and color-coded file folders” — the women run errands, pick up prescriptions, and groceries, drive people to medical appointments, and, eventually, visit them in the hospital and plan their funerals. This is more than volunteering; this is assuming responsibility, with spreadsheets and follow-up phone calls, and dropping everything, when necessary, to dash out the door, even on a holiday, even late at night.
The Works of Stewart O'Nan 