Book Club: Evenings and Weekends
The debut novel from spoken-word artist, Oisín McKenna.
Published in 2024, Evenings and Weekends is the debut novel from spoken-word artist, Oisín McKenna.
What's it about?
The story immerses us in the summer of 2019 in London. It's June, and the city is throbbing in the heat.
McKenna's story centres on one specific weekend, but the characters that converge in this narrative bring with them lifetimes of emotional baggage and unfulfilled dreams.
Phil is in love with Keith. His best friend Maggie is pregnant with Ed's baby. Phil wonders whether he should tell Maggie that he shagged Phil. Plus, there's a whale in the Thames. There's a lot going on.
What themes does the novel explore?
London as a city and a way of life looms large in this story. It shapes the characters and their experiences as well as the choices available to them. McKenna brings a coarse affection to his portrayal of London that echoes the relationship of Dickens to the city. There's also echoes of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway - preparing for a party in London.
The power of shared experience versus individual existence is also front-and-centre. Most notably through the city's response to the whale in the Thames, but also in the city's reaction to the heat, and the precarious economic reality of living in London.
In their own way, each of McKenna's characters are reframing their dreams and ambitions. For the 30-somethings, they're facing the reality that their youth is behind them and they aren't where they imagined that they would be at this point in their life. For the parents, it's a point of reflection on a life lived - choices made, mistakes endured.
I found the shifting perspectives kept us at a distance from the emotional depth of the characters - we were observing rather than building empathy. The people in this story aren't particularly likeable. But we were shown both the inner and outer lives of each character and the struggles they were encountering in trying to bridge those two realms of existence and the emotional divides that this can create.
Reflecting his spoken-word background, McKenna draws on language that aims for a sensory response - sights, smells, and sounds bring the story to life in a visceral way.
The story is set in an interesting time period for London. The years following the 2016 Brexit vote felt like the world was unravelling. We meet these characters in the summer before the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic and the new-normal that followed. While 2019 was a pivotal moment for the characters of this novel, it was also a pivotal moment for the city in which they all lived.
Why is this an important novel for gay men?
This is a story of queer life in London that feels contemporary and authentic. McKenna channels a bit of Maupin's Tales of the City vibe in the way that events and characters are presented.
If you've spent any time in East London, many of the references that anchor this narrative will be familiar. McKenna successfully captures the highs and lows of queer existence in London's inner-east.
The story does explore some examples of queer relationships without glossing over the complexities often encountered.
McKenna also gives us flawed queer characters - they're not particularly likeable, they're not making great decisions, but they're doing the best they can to navigate the live that they're living.
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