Everyday People [Hardcover]

Stewart O'Nan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2001

Selected by Granta as one of America's Best Young Novelists, Stewart O'Nan has created award-winning fiction that's been hailed by critics for its evocative lyricism and finely wrought characters. In his new novel, Everyday People, O'Nan brings together the stories of the residents of one Pittsburgh neighborhood to create a lush, dramatic portrait that vividly captures the experience of the day-to-day struggle that is life in urban America. Set in the African-American community of East Liberty during one fateful week in the early fall of 1998, the novel centers around Chris "Crest" Tolbert -- an eighteen-year-old left paralyzed and haunted by the loss of his best friend after a recent accident -- and weaves together the lives of friends and family, lovers and strangers, and their emotions, memories, and dreams. There is Vanessa, Crest's estranged girlfriend and the mother of his son, who finds her life at a crossroads as she comes to terms with her former boyfriend's injuries, while her view of the world is being transformed by a night class on African-American culture. There is Crest's brother Eugene, nicknamed "U," an ex-con turned born-again Christian who is trying to stay straight while intervening to prevent the endless cycle of urban violence from claiming the life of the younger brother of one of his best friends, a victim of drugs. And there is Crest and U's father, Harold, who must choose between the passion of his newfound love for a young gay man and a family that needs him now more than ever. Vibrant, poignant, and brilliantly rendered, Everyday People is an unforgettable novel destined to be beloved by readers and acclaimed by critics.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The protean O'Nan seems determined to touch nearly every facet of human experience in a remarkable variety of times and places. In such brilliant novels as Snow Angel and A Prayer for the Dying, he's created distinctive, almost palpable worlds rich in moral complexities. But while his apparent purpose in writing this new novel (after the nonfiction The Circus Fire) is commendable, this story of African-Americans victimized by poverty and racial bias does not develop the mesmerizing narrative tension that distinguishes his previous work. The characters whose intertwined lives are presented in short chapters are residents of a declining African-American community near Pittsburgh, where drug use offers escape from teenage boredom and a lack of job opportunities; gang wars and violent crime inevitably follow. O'Nan's empathy for his characters conveys their sense of frustration and powerlessness, the restlessness of teenagers and the older generations' stoic dignity. Each character exists in a state of grief. At 18, Chris "Crest" Tolbert is trying to adjust to life in a wheelchair, from an accident in which he and his best buddy, Bean, fell off a thruway overpass while drawing graffiti. Bean died, and his grandmother, Miss Fisk, is admired by the community for her Job-like endurance. Chris's father is hiding a homosexual love for a younger man; his older brother accepted religion in prison and is striving to keep others from going down the path he followed. Nobody is innately bad; each is a victim of the system or of life's ironies. O'Nan's sensitive portraits of these people plumbs the depths of their longings for a decent break but, oddly for this always intense author, the narrative lacks vitality. Earnest, even heartfelt, the novel seems studied and its plot too obviously charted. Still, O'Nan gets the voices just right, especially the homeboy argot and casual obscenities, and flashes of fine writing redeem this admirable but disappointing effort by an outstanding writer. Agent, David Gernert.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

O'Nan's depictions of the African American families in East Liberty, a small enclave near Pittsburgh, are startling: the two teenage graffiti artists who fall off a bridge, one killed, the other trapped in a wheelchair; the boy murdered in a turf war; the former gang member who got religion in prison; and the single mother trying to better herself. Additionally, having Giancarlo Esposito to read this book was inspired. The only problem is that, despite all the inherent possibilities for drama, listeners are left with mere description. For more than two tapes, the words simply drift past, floating from one character to the next, interesting but never engrossing. Finally, on the second side of tape three, the narrative asserts itself, and we begin to follow changes in the characters' interactions, even if transitions from one scene to the next are often muddled. This reviewer was left questioning the abridgment; descriptions of Vanessa's college class, for example, which don't further the tale, could easily have been omitted. As it stands, with its extremely pat conclusion, this audiobook has little to recommend it. Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News,"New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st edition (February 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802116817
• ISBN-13: 978-0802116819
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,687,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stewart O'Nan's award-winning fiction includes Snow Angels, A Prayer for the Dying, Last Night at the Lobster, and Emily, Alone. Granta named him one of America's Best Young Novelists. He lives in Pittsburgh.

www.stewart-onan.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN AUTHOR WITH MAXIMUM TALENT, February 25, 2001

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Everyday People (Hardcover)

With compassion as his bellwether and acute observance as his compass Stewart O'Nan offers an intense story of people thwarted by poverty and racial prejudice.

Set in East Liberty, a wasted Pittsburgh community, the novel's action is compressed to one week in the lives of the Tolbert family. An 18-year-old son, Chris, has been paralyzed by a fall from a freeway overpass. This graffiti writing escapade took the life of his best friend.

His older brother, who found religion while in prison, is attempting to save another from the ravages of urban violence. While their father, Harold, is drawn to a homosexual relationship with a younger man.

Many of their neighbors stoically bear the vicissitudes wrought simply by their birth while longing for a better life.

Mr. O'Nan's ear for street patois is true, bringing authenticity to his spare yet compelling dialogue. As evidenced in his latest work, this author remains a master of minimalist prose blessed with maximum talent.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary book about extraordinary people, March 8, 2001

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Phelps Gates (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Everyday People (Hardcover)

Sometimes I wonder why I keep reading this guy's books, since they are so relentlessly grim (it's no doubt not a coincidence that he's dressed all in black in the cover photo). At first, it looks like this one will be an exception, with the horrible events in the past rather than in the future. No such luck. And just when it looks like things are quietly winding down, the last word in the book is a kick in the stomach (and stands in for a chapter which I had been expecting, and dreading). Of course, O'Nan's skill in creating characters makes up for a lot of grimness (though it would be nice to read a slightly more cheerful book by him). A good deal of his skill is in what he let's us fill in for ourselves, rather than describing himself (what becomes of Sister Marita, for example). Highly recommended, but read it on a sunny day!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hope can keep you going; despair will kill you, March 10, 2001

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"rav10" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everyday People (Hardcover)

Stewart O'Nan is an author who resolutely defies categorization. His works include the real-life horrors of "The Speed Queen" and "A Prayer for the Dying." But he also holds the mundane everyday up to light when he examines the bonds and responsibilities of family in "A World Away" and in this most recent work, "Everyday People."

"Everyday People" is set in O'Nan's home town of Pittsburgh, a city defined by its close-knit neighborhoods. East Liberty is a predominantly black neighborhood. Once a thriving working-class community, a place of help and hope, it has been socially decimated by gangs and physically split by the construction of an express busway that effectively cuts it off from the rest of the city.

The novel is built of chapters that read like sharply defined, independent but interrelated short stories. Each holds fully developed characters, conflict and a finality of ending. Taken together, though, they build in power as they show the families, friends and lovers bound together in a tightly drawn picture of community.

These are gritty stories, well removed from worlds of polished comfort. The characters most central to the saga are those of the Tolbert family, each of whom is challenged by a different kind of desperation. Chris, 18, is a young man whose hopes were severed as completely as his spinal cord after a freak accident kills his best friend and confines him to a wheelchair. The twin comforts of pain pills and marijuana ease some of his physical symptoms, but he has to either uncover the inner resources to continue living or accept that he's effectively found himself in a life sentence without hope of parole.

Chris' brother, Eugene, has recently returned home after a jail term; he's learned his lesson, found the Lord and is looking to help the younger men in his neighborhood avoid his pitfalls. His efforts, though, are not enough to save a man who was once his best friend. Their father, Harold, recently has admitted to himself he's a homosexual, though it's not a secret he's shared with his family. He finds himself questioning whether he's now tied to them by responsibility or love - if it hadn't been for Chris' accident, he might well have been out of the house and living a different life with his boyfriend. Jackie doesn't understand why her marriage has fallen apart, but she's held together by the certain knowledge that "tragedies would come and go, and only faith stayed the same."

"Everyday People" is a book immersed in the rich complexity of character. In the most casual way, it explores the daily choices, large and small, deliberate or casual, that can forever change a life. It contrasts the choices offered by the paths of hope and despair. It investigates the pull and the obligations of love in all its wonderful, often difficult and sometimes ugly guises.