Book Review: "Emily, Alone" by Edgewood's Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O’Nan is a difficult man to contact.

Suppose you want to do an interview with this respected Pittsburgh writer, and although he lived some time in Connecticut, he now resides in Edgewood, not far from your own house. Suppose he’s been spotted at , a place you sometimes frequent. Suppose you wrote his publicist and called his publisher, waited a few months, and never received any kind of response. 

And suppose you once read his 2002 novel, Everyday People, and wrote a glowing review for a local weekly. Suppose Everyday People was such a great story about inner city Pittsburgh that your hardcover copy has been schlepped to five different apartments and still stands on your shelf. Suppose you’ve always wanted to interview Stewart O’Nan, and his acclaimed new book has just been released, and this seems like perfect timing. Yet absolutely no one you know – neighbors, colleagues, fellow writers – has any idea how to get in touch with him. 

Well, there’s a Plan B: The best window to a writer’s soul is his prose. And so, I read Emily, Alone, his most recent book, released earlier this year.

O’Nan has come a long way since he won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in 1993. He’s written a dozen novels, published some nonfiction volumes and even penned a screenplay about Edgar Allen Poe. Beach-readers will enjoy Faithful, a memoir about the Red Sox he co-authored with Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King). Ever since he quit his job as an aeronautic test-engineer, O’Nan has become an increasingly powerful voice in American letters, and he’s tried something new with every book. 

But one thing remains constant: O’Nan is a master of human empathy. Emily, Alone is the story of Emily, an elderly Pittsburgh widow who struggles through every morning and afternoon, knowing fully that her days are numbered. Because most of her contemporaries are gone, Emily spends a lot of time with her friend Arlene, also an older woman, and together they face the challenges of the modern world, such as driving, poor eye-sight, declining health and Emily’s extremely dysfunctional progeny.

This is not the protagonist we might expect of a white male 50-year-old writer, but that is O’Nan’s gift. Just as Everyday People described the lives of Hill District carjackers and small-time gangsters, Emily, Alone is a portrait of geriatric loneliness. Emily is stiff, methodical, nostalgic and scolding. She is an old-school Republican whose only daily companion is her ancient dog Rufus, who might also keel over at any moment.

One hopes that Emily, Alone will become required reading in nursing programs, for O’Nan intimately describes the rituals and concerns of grandmothers in their twilight years. Yes, there are “senior moments,” such as memory loss and bouts of paranoia, but O’Nan also describes such dangers as icy stoops, which can be deadly for fragile people living alone.

Then there’s the Pittsburgh factor: Emily, Alone is packed with Steel City references and savvy readers could easily map a walking tour of Emily’s life. O’Nan describes parking in Oakland, the waitresses of Eat ‘N Park, the loop around East Liberty, and even the music selections of WQED at different times of day.

Edgewood features prominently in Emily, Alone, as if O’Nan has staked a literary claim. The novel has received great reviews, but it is also a triumph for our neighborhood: The man has returned to his hometown, and so, in earnest, has his fiction.