Evensong, Stewart O’Nan’s 20th novel and his third set in Pittsburgh, follows the members of the Humpty-Dumpty Club, a group of women ages 63 and up who’ve organized themselves into an informal mutual-aid group to help each other and other older (and less independent) friends and neighbors with a variety of tasks. “Informal,” though, is hardly the right word, since the group’s activities are meticulously organized by its leader, the forceful and energetic Joan.

The story begins when — in a grim echo of the club’s name — Joan suffers a bad fall. The event soon ripples through the others’ lives, albeit fairly gently. Among them is Kitzi, Joan’s second-in-command, who finds herself struggling to fill Joan’s shoes while taking care of her ailing husband, a lovable, mostly homebound lunk whose AFib requires him to wear a shock vest. And Susie, who, living alone after a long, unhappy marriage and divorce, sneaks Joan’s cat, Oliver, into her tiny apartment, remembering how much she enjoys “the small satisfactions of taking care of someone.”

Many of these characters will be familiar to readers of O’Nan’s other novels. For example, Emily, the beautiful, demanding wife of 1999’s Henry, Himself and the disoriented widow of 2014’s Emily, Alone is, in Evensong, no less strict and proud but, at nearly 90, just a little more calm.

The women visit Joan in the hospital, where she advises them from her bed. The action is so sedate, the characters so amiably from another generation (they never swear even when alone, instead saying, “Poop. Double poop” or “cheese and crackers”), that readers unfamiliar with O’Nan’s work could be forgiven for thinking it’s all an elaborate setup for a looming murder-mystery to be solved by a team of plucky, elderly sleuths. Barring this, you might be waiting for something awful to shatter the peace and quiet of this little world: After all, mortality and illness hover over almost every page.

But dramatic eventfulness isn’t O’Nan’s style. His books pay loving attention to the ordinary and can make a story out of a missed turn, a fender-bender, or a single choir practice. In that spirit, Evensong unfolds at a pace set by errands, holiday preparations, bedside visits, and the demands of pets and family. Football games give life a comforting regularity; the aggressive campaign ads of 2022’s midterm elections give it an anxious buzz. In the background is the city of Pittsburgh, almost a character itself.

O’Nan has built a considerable following over his nearly 40-year career, and Evensong won’t disappoint his fans. The lives of its characters are observed with the kindness and humor that are his hallmark. His is a gentle, carefully observed world, and his novels sometimes go by almost without beginning or end. As an ensemble piece, however, Evensong is a bit less absorbing than some of his best-loved books, including Henry, Himself and Last Night at the Lobster, which are more character studies.  

Also, while Evensong shifts frequently among the various members of the Humpty-Dumpty Club, it’s hard not to notice that their voices are awfully similar. All the women are so equally sensitive, mild, and reasonable that, for the first 50 pages or so, it’s easy to mix them up. It’s unfair to compare any author to that masterful observer of middle-class life, John Updike, or that pitiless chronicler of old age, J.M. Coetzee, but in a book like Evensong that deals so much with aging and frailty, I couldn’t help occasionally wanting a break from the mildness, for some of Updike’s cool skepticism or Coetzee’s bleak realism.

Still, to spend time with O’Nan’s women so closely over a season can’t help but be affecting. His characters, for all their difficulties big and small, face their lives with unflagging hopefulness.

Aaron Labaree’s work has appeared in Literary Review, Public Books, and elsewhere. He lives in New York.