Everyday People

Crest has lost the use of his legs after falling off a walkway while trying to write graffiti on a roadside wall; his best friend, Bean, fell too and died. Now Crest must try to repair his relationship with Vanessa, the mother of his child, whose night-school class is alerting her to a wider world. Crest's older brother Eugene, an ex-con turned born-again Christian, is facing the temptations of his past, while their parents confront their own crisis.



Powerful and moving, tender and resonant, Everyday People is an unforgettable novel that vividly captures the experience of the day-to-day struggle that is life in urban America.



Stewart O'Nan is the author of sixteen novels, including City of Secrets, West of Sunset and Last Night at the Lobster, as well as several works of non-fiction, including, with Stephen King, the bestselling Faithful. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh where he lives with his family.



He is a writer who reaches out, both making and bridging worlds. . . . The novel is like a neighbourhood, with chapters about various characters set side by side like so many doors on the same street.



A sad and haunting novel . . . The struggles of the Tolbert family, with love and obligation, with hope and the end of hope, give shape to a plot that does not wholly unspool until the last sentence - about the most dramatic and poignant I have ever read.



With wit, tenderness, and empathy Stewart O'Nan renders a detailed portrait of life that's more than just a description of hard knocks against the backdrop of urban blight. . . A unique and tantalising novel that celebrates the lives of everyday people in an extraordinary way.



Reading this novel will reward you with a profound, sobering realisation of the differences that exist between us while insisting nonetheless that we share a profound sameness. O'Nan accomplishes a rare thing, for he has us mourn a common loss. . . .Everyday People aims at restoring to the sufferer and the victim . . . their full and due humanity. . . . It is not a thing easily done. But Stewart O'Nan has pulled it off in beautiful, heartbreaking, haunting fashion.