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.
O’Nan’s writing is wise and wry. He pinpoints the absurdities of human behavior ... There’s not a ton of plot in Evensong, which seems right for a book that’s mainly interested in showing us, in detail, how these women live. But O’Nan’s writing builds in power over the course of the book, ending as you’d expect an evensong service to conclude: with a prayer.
Not as piercingly intimate as the masterful Emily, Alone, but in its breadth it might be wiser and more encompassing. It is about responsibility and community, written with gentle humor and empathy but not an ounce of sentimentality ... How can a novel about getting old, losing friends, growing frail, be anything but depressing? But in O’Nan’s hands it is buoyant and hopeful ... His novels are unexpected and very different from one another. But always, he is a master at quotidian details, a master at human emotion. Always, he writes with a huge and generous heart ... Tender and funny, poignant and true. The novel is a little miracle: here it is, life, on the page.
