Henry, Himself

June 3, 2019
O’Nan’s elegiac companion piece to his 2011 novel, Emily, Alone, follows Emily’s husband of 49 years, Henry Maxwell, who, at 75, suffers from variety of physical ailments. The year is 1998 and readers follow Henry and his family from Valentine’s Day to New Year’s Eve as they celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, observe annual traditions, and spend the summer by the lake. Henry and Emily grapple with their two adult children, Margaret and Kenny, their respective spouses, Jeff and Lisa, and their grandchildren. Nothing especially dramatic happens, except, maybe, when Margaret, who is a recovering alcoholic, gets into an accident right before Thanksgiving and Emily rushes to be with her, leaving Henry to serve the holiday feast to the rest of his family on his own. A member of the “Greatest Generation,” Henry deals with his own growing sense of mortality, but he does it with a rare grace that endears him to the reader. The author evokes Henry’s middle-class Pittsburgh existence like a Keystone State Joyce. One would have to go back to Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge to find a literary marriage bookended in such a perceptive fashion.

Stewart O'Nan revisits the Maxwell family, introduced in WISH YOU WERE HERE (2002) and EMILY, ALONE (2011). In the third audiobook, narrator Richmond Hoxie's scratchy voice gives Henry just a hint of amusement as he deals with the routine things that give order to his ordinary life. In a charmingly understated delivery, Hoxie reveals a gentle man who helps out at church, looks forward to summers in Chautauqua, adores his wife, and worries about his adult children. He is overweight, has high cholesterol, and, at 74, has grown aware of his body's limitations. In occasional flashbacks, Hoxie transports us to Henry's childhood and to his WWII traumas. O'Nan offers a lovely novel in which every detail confirms that even an unremarkable man's life is remarkable. Hoxie makes listening worthwhile. S.J.H. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine