Evenings and Weekends: A Novel

by Oisín McKenna

For fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters, a taut and profoundly moving debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters during a heatwave in London as simmering tensions and secrets come to a head over one life-changing weekend.

London, 2019. It’s the hottest June on record, and a whale is stuck in the Thames River. In the streets of the city, four old acquaintances want more from life than they’ve been given. On the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, their paths will intersect at a party that will change their lives forever…

Maggie, a once-hopeful artist turned waitress, is pregnant and preparing to move back to her hometown with her boyfriend and father-to-be Ed, leaving the city she loves and the life she imagined for herself.

Ed, coasting through life as a barely competent bike courier, is ready for a new start with Maggie and their baby, if only to finally leave behind his secret past of hooking up with strange men in train station bathrooms—and his secret past with Maggie’s best friend, Phil.

Phil, who sleepwalks through his office job and lives for the weekends, is on the brink of achieving his first real relationship with his roommate Keith. The two live in an illegal warehouse commune with other quirky creatives and idealists—the site of the party to end all parties.

As the temperature continues to climb, Maggie, Ed, and Phil will have to confront their shared pasts, current desires, and limits of their future lives together before the weekend is over.

Strikingly heartfelt, sexually charged, and disarmingly comic, Oisín McKenna’s addictive, page-turning debut is a mesmerizing dive into the soul of a city and a critical look at the political, emotional, and financial hurdles facing young adults trying to build lives there and often living for their evenings and weekends.              

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Audiobook, Book Club

352 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2024

Reviews

[Jack Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book club pick!!!!! Read along with us here on Fable: https://fable.sng.link/Ali7l/5kmb/rnxe and join Inklings on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/___inklings...

Evenings and Weekends is a sizzling debut novel. It’s a love letter to London with an incredible ensemble cast of characters. Each person is messy and going through their own inner turmoil, whether that’s needing to tell their son about a cancer diagnosis, panicking about pregnancy, navigating heteronormative propriety, or being caught in a love triangle.

What I love is that there are no villains. McKenna writes each character with warmth and empathy — we’re truly rooting for everyone. Set during a heatwave, there’s a peculiar intensity to the drama, in which every character feels a little too close for comfort — it’s claustrophobic and intoxicating. There’s also a whale stuck in the River Thames and a reporter who bears an eerie resemblance to Princess Diana. Naturally she is crowned “The Princess…. Of Whales”. Moments of levity and triumph provide relief from the emotional complexity of this tale.

It’s certainly a rollercoaster, but one you’ll immediately want to ride again.

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

the theme is miscommunication and the vibe is stress

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

had me at "for fans of sally rooney"

this is about what happens when you spend a random weekend in the company of like 7-12 people who vaguely know each other and have 100,000 secrets.

some of these people are fully developed and make you feel things alongside them, and some of them are annoying and you can tell from page 1 how their secrets will be dramatically declared and play out accordingly.

still, while this had its strengths and its weaknesses, overall i liked it!

bottom line: we live in the midst of the irish lit fic renaissance.

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

[dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

i really wanted to love this bc it was advertised as “for fans of sally rooney” but i just couldn’t really get into it unfortunately!

its set across a weekend and we get a glimpse of the lives of many characters (which i felt was too much and i couldn’t connect to any of them) who have issues of their own and some that intertwine with the others.

i found myself skimming through the parts of characters i didn’t care about & was just basically bored overall. bc again, i couldn’t find myself caring about the characters bc we are thrown into the middle of like 8?? characters problems all at once and it felt like like a chore

[Becca Packer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm going to say it: writing about sex, drugs and queerness doesn't make your story interesting. I felt this book wanted to be deep and edgy but honestly I saw no point to it. I kept having flashbacks to working in a hipster coffee shop and all my coworkers talking about how amazing their lives were because of all the hook ups and drugs they were doing. Maybe I just don't get it. Maybe if the characters had been in their early 20s it would have been less frustrating. Honestly I was bored through all of it and all the problems in these people's lives comes from not communicating. Why was it so hard to tell Phil you have cancer but not your alcoholic other son? And why does Tescos get mentioned so often? Is it a metaphor? Is someone upset about the Tesco club card? I don't get it.
Anyway I got excited when I realised the Author is from Drogheda and wondered if he knew Colin.
Also I do owe Chrissy a 13 years late apology. Apparently other people do text like that and I Am sorry.

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some pretty good turn of phrases and a few cool scenes/moments of insight but profoundly moving it was not.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciated how Oisin McKenna tackles queerness, heteronormativity, and open relationships in this book. But I found the writing so dull and lacking in any narrative tension. I love fiction about messy interpersonal relationships though this one just fell flat for me. As others have noted I think many works of fiction that are about youngish people being interpersonally messy gets compared to Sally Rooney nowadays; but, even though I’ve only given one of Rooney’s works four stars or greater (her latest work Intermezzo ), I can’t deny her writing on the sentence-level is consistently strong, engaging, and at times electric. But with Evenings and Weekends, the prose just plodded along. Again, here for the queer rep though this novel didn’t jibe with me.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blurb says this is “for fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters.” You’ll need to be the judge of that. I can see it, but McKenna is also doing his own thing.

This novel feels veryyyy contemporary (well 2019 pre-Covid contemporary). With name drops of mainstream pop artists to Brexit to memes and whatever, it’s definitely 2019-era heavy. Its main focal point is what it’s like to be young and alive during the chaos of this world. More specifically, the world of London. The book is very London, and although I’ve never visited there, the book succeeds at portraying the hustle and bustle of London living, while showcasing the multifaceted dynamics of the people who call it home. London is the main character.

The novel has a relatability to it. You’ve met these people before, especially if you’re part of the millennial generation: The struggling artist, the hipsters, the dealer, the confused bisexuals, the “I don’t know what I want to do with my life” type, and the “I can’t afford anything” dilemma.

Here we have Maggie, a 30 year old who is pregnant, deciding to move back to her small town under the guise of wanting to settle down. Her boyfriend, Ed, is trying to be responsible, but is also hiding a past of hooking up with men in public bathrooms. (!!!!) Ed also shares a past with Maggie’s best friend, Phil. Phil is in a throuple situationship. Phil’s mom, Rosaleen has just been diagnosed with cancer, which everyone seems to be aware of except for Phil. Oh, and there’s a distressed whale that has washed up on shore and is the current talk of the city and social media. Oh, the drama!

EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS takes place mostly over one weekend. As the title would suggest, we don’t ever see the characters during their working hours. We hear about that life, but we don’t actually witness it. This is more a look at their trials and tribulations during their time off. Even though Maggie, Ed, Phil, and Rosaleen are our main quartet, the novel actually consists of a large ensemble. We get (third person) perspectives of pretty much everyone in their close friendship group, as well as some of their parents.

The prose and dialogue are breezy and just glides you along. The vibe is an endless buzz, sticky as the summer heat. We’re invited to the parties, the eateries, and beloved landmarks. We’re privy to the private jokes, the anxiety, the insecurities, the jealousies, the lust, the hookups, the camaraderie, the nostalgia, and the loyalties. Flip-flopping between unshakable bonds and fragile partnerships. Every character is secretly in a vulnerable position, with an almost stubborn unwillingness to bear their soul. It’s one of those books where characters find themselves unable to communicate, afraid of what their admissions will mean to the other person. Not only used as a protective shield for themselves, but as a shelter for the other person.

Enjoyed my time here. Made me feel nostalgic. Also made me want to reach out to some friends I haven’t conversed with in a hot minute. A most sumptuous debut.

[meow (semi hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Irish litfic is the shit, and oh, how I fucking can't get enough of it. It's astounding that this is Oisín McKenna's debut novel; not only is it incredibly written, it's also raw, queer as fuck, and awfully sad. You'd think it'd be annoying to hear 10 characters perspectives, thoughts, and all their whining, but honestly, it's done in the most realistic and beautiful way ever, and this is coming from a person who has memory of a goldfish and can't keep up. If you like litfic, you might want to pick this up.

[Candice Marquez · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book almost put me in a reading slump, it was actually painful. How do I not give a fuck about one single character?

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Russell Tovey claims it is ‘Astonishing’
Owen Jones shouts ‘lt’s a masterpiece’

I therefore was excitably nervous as to what I would think and find between this intriguingly reviewed book

I found London, London in that hot never ending Summer of 2019 when the poor whale beached, London full of lust, excitement and the belief that anything and everything was just around the next corner

Based on complex characters yet not complex to get to know and their ambitions and dreams and wants and desires it was a book like no other I have read for a long time

It is a queer led book ( yep I used to not be overkeen on the word either but as someone who was used to being called it it feels almost ok after reading this book that its been reclaimed by us for us and not a care given either way who it offends) and has some very poignant dilemmas as unspoken love comes to a head with outspoken sexuality

The writing is divine, it was literally a joy to read and one of those books where every sentence caused a reaction, sometimes good, sometimes challenging

I absolutely loved it, every word

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I find it fascinating how often novels are compared to Sally Rooney’s work, accidentally revealing just how good Rooney is at what she does. This was tremendously tedious, exhaustive verisimilitude mistaken for depth or character. I truly hated how much of this hinged on miscommunication and withholding information from each other as a catalyst for Drama. None of these characters, or their relationships, captivated me, each spin on the POV roulette wheel essentially reading the same. It's also criminal to present me with a beached whale in the Thames, a marine biologist who goes viral because she looks just like Princess Diana AND is having an affair with a celebrity chef and then just.......use all of That as a sprig of parsley on your overcooked meal. I want that novel, please.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Remember when every new Thriller to hit the market was “for fans of Gone Girl?” And, y’know, none of them measured up to or even actually had much in common with Gone Girl? We have the same problem now in the New Adult/Lit Fic adjacent space with Sally Rooney. This did not remind me of Rooney’s work. It lacks the compelling hyperfocus and the characters who you deeply want to invest in.

I don’t have any issue with the writing here, which ranges from perfectly fine to quite sharp at various points in the book. But the story is nothing new, the characters are difficult to connect with in any meaningful way, and their relationship dynamics fail to intrigue. Mostly it just isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, nor is it presented in such an exceptional way that this doesn’t matter.

I wanted to be interested in the whale in the Thames component of this if nothing else. After all, what’s a more powerful symbol throughout the history of literature than a whale? But the story doesn’t manage to put anything like that together here. McKenna has talent as a writer, but the storytelling needs a lot of work.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[enzoreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

C’était génial vraiment le meilleur Sally Rooney dupe que j’ai lu jusqu’à maintenant bravo

[Carolyn Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, this wasn’t for me.

[Johann (jobis89) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Set across one swelteringly hot weekend in London, Evenings and Weekends centres around a cast of intricately linked characters, most of whom are harbouring secrets. Everything comes to a head over the course of this weekend as tensions arise and relationships are put to the test. Literally struggling to believe this is a debut novel as it all felt so polished and perfectly constructed. I really felt for the majority of the characters and was very emotionally invested in their lives. Also the humour and references to pop culture were a delight!! And it goes without saying that I love discovering a new Irish author to fawn over. One to look out for!!

[leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

intimate, funny, queer, messy, and just very human. i always seem to like books that take place over a short period of time (this one spans a heatwave weekend in london), which can be hard to do but it’s done really well here. the pacing is great and every character had an interesting storyline. full of miscommunication and longing and i really enjoyed it.

[Elsa · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many different characters and not one that I liked or cared about.

[Michael Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beached In London

Oisin McKenna’s debut novel “Evenings and Weekends” is loaded with remarkable characters. Early on I had to jot down a roster, a family tree of sorts, as these people came on the scene. It was worth it. The cast here is amazing, populated by fascinating three-dimensional players. Strikingly, there are no bad guys here, just souls figuring out who they are and what they need for their lives.

London. Cities or locales are usually integral to the story– here London is a big player. The city charges and feeds those here. We feel the promise, the excitement, everyone’s expectations pumped up. The intensity is magnified by the sensation over a whale trapped in the Thames, an event drawing most of these players in.

There are couples scrambling to determine the futures of their relationships. Maggie is pregnant with Ed’s child, and they are planning on raising the baby outside of London. Ed is afraid Maggie is going to find out secrets in his past. Maggie’s close friend, Phil, has had a sexual experience with Ed and may tell Maggie. Phil is in love with his housemate, Keith– who also has a boyfriend, Louis (who may be harboring feelings for Phil!).

So, there are a lot of characters and interweaving relationships going on here… a little reminiscent of a movie like “Love, Actually.” My favorite is Rosaleen– Phil’s mom. She has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She has to find the right way to let Phil know. She has to make sense of her life’s journey. She also has to embrace Pauline, her close friend whose death years ago has haunted her.

Yes, it was a little difficult to keep track of these people as they first appeared. With so many different threads going, it would seem likely to be the stuff of a soap opera. Somehow, the pages kept turning rapidly and I bought into each character’s struggle to navigate a future. An inspired novel by a new voice.

Thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #EveningsandWeekends #NetGalley

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 3 out of 5]

edit: nah, this is a soft 3 on further consideration. if you're going to market this to fans of sally rooney, then we should at least deeply know the characters and really get in their heads and there were just too many for that to happen.

3.5. i didn't dislike it but i didn't love it. it was kind of all over the place and i didn't really feel a pull towards any particular characters. it was fine.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, I considered DNF-ing the book. Irish author, Oisín McKenna, is very young and the book seemed to be written for a much younger audience. However, I’m very happy I persevered because it soon appeared that people of all ages were represented. Before I was even halfway into the book, I’d become utterly charmed, besotted, smitten, and any other “love” word you can name! It’s such a beautiful story, with so many unexpected and wonderfully quirky things happening along the way! What I loved most about Evenings and Weekends was what McKenna had to say—through his characters’ thoughts—about life, about love, and about human nature. For such a young author, his writing demonstrates an astonishing maturity, with philosophical insights on life.

The Guardian British daily recently characterised the book as a “tender portrait of contemporary queer life”—quite an apt description. And that tenderness is what kept my heart feeling full to bursting much of the time. The rest of the time I spent giggling, chuckling, or laughing out loud! McKenna has a phenomenal talent for comedy—cultivated, I’m guessing, during his years as a verbal storyteller.

Before he began writing fiction, McKenna was, and remains, an award-winning spoken word artist. In 2017, The Irish Times named him one of the best spoken word artists in the country. He’s written and performed several theatre shows and radio plays. After reading his fictional debut, and watching a few of his online shows, it’s my opinion that McKenna is wise beyond his years. I feel certain his tremendous talent for writing will produce several published novels in the years ahead. I’ve seen this book called a “literary masterpiece” and I could not agree more!!🌟 I encourage all of you to consider reading this book! You’ll be glad you did.

5 “They-just-want-to-be-seen-and-heard” stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Colby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. There were little morsels of greatness, but overall I just hated the way they were packaged. The exposition is so clunky in the way it introduces a million characters with very little differentiation. Once you’re established in the story, everyone just feels like a bunch of complainers. Not understanding the hype here.

[Sally Darr Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 or 4.5!!!! wowowow so incredible. I loved all of the different POVs. I loved uncovering more and more about each character. This isn’t a book with a miscommunication trope—it’s a book with a withholding-information trope. I couldn’t stop highlighting!!!

“She has laughed at babies, and with them, too.
She has waved goodbye to babies.
She has caught air kisses blown by pudgy fingers.
She has placed the air kisses so delicately in her pocket for safekeeping, and then, boarding the bus back towards her life, thought Why do I feel like crying?

There was nothing like a baby to make you doubt every decision you'd ever made.

What if she reached forty, fifty, surveyed her life and said, No, this isn't mine. This life has nothing to do with me. My life is over there, with a baby, but now it's too late to get to it.”

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Update: The more I think about this book, the more I don't really care for it... I don't know who I was when I wrote this review...
---
I liked this, but didn't love. It’s a layered and interconnected story about friends, lovers, rivals, and family set during a sweltering heat wave in London. While I have no personal ties to London, the city comes to life with McKenna’s vivid descriptions. On a sentence level, the prose is solid and has that modern acerbic wit that you’d find in aforementioned writers like Sally Rooney.

The events of the novel largely take place over a single weekend, and as the chapters progress, we understand more and more about the complex web of relationships between each narrator. No character is a true protagonist in this, and the cycling through all the different perspectives is generally successful. I think some plot arcs (and even some characters) feel a bit superfluous; the book could stand to lose a few dozen pages in the middle to avoid feeling so slow. Maggie and Phil’s friendship was the highlight of the book for me. I’m in two minds about the ending. I didn’t expect a conclusive, resolute ending, but some conflicts felt resolved too easily, and others felt questionably drawn out.

While the execution isn’t perfect, I liked McKenna’s writing and I’d read his sophomore release. If you’re the type of reader who enjoys slice-of-life fiction and poignant reflections on life as a disenchanted Millennial, I think this will also resonate with you.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book came at the exact right time - i related to phil so much that i felt everything and it broke me ….maybe my fav book of the year

[Emma.catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book of the new year by an Irish author ☘️💚🇮🇪

Personally, I found this book took some warming up to. It starts off very oddly - It's the hottest June on record (London, 2019) and there is a whale is stuck in the Thames River - not exactly what you would expect, and definitely took me a bit off guard!

The story is based around a collection of characters who are all interconnected. Brothers, friends, boyfriends, lovers, mothers, sons etc…It took me a while to get my head around them all and get their stories straight in my head, but once I did I found myself engaged and interested in finding out what would come of them. I did, however, instantly take a shine to Maggie. I loved the realness of her character immediately, and I was intrigued by her storyline from the outset. It was the rest of the characters that took me a while to grasp.

As the story progresses secrets emerge from the past lives of these individuals. Old acquaintances want more from life than they've been given. On this weekend of the summer solstice, their paths will intersect at a party that will change their lives forever...

🌟🌟🌟🌟

Oisin’s writing is absolutely amazing; I was astonished to find out this was his debut novel! The structure and power behind his storytelling was exceptional. And, each and every character had their own part to play in this unique kaleidoscope of London.

Maggie, as I mentioned before, is pregnant and preparing to move back to her hometown with her boyfriend (and baby daddy), Ed. Leaving the city them both love behind brings up all sorts of emotions and neither her, nor Ed, truly believe they are up for the challenge that lies ahead of them…will their bond be strong enough to withstand the shocking news from the past, along side the pressures of parenthood?

Meanwhile, Maggie’s best friend, Phil, has a big weekend ahead. He is occupied by Keith (roommate/lover) after work, Maggie, his childhood best friend, on Saturday morning, his mum in the afternoon and THE party in the evening. It’s the hottest weekend of the year and soon he will run to his desk, shut down is computer and his real life will really begin; he will burst into being.

‘Right now, every single person in London is cackling into the mouth of the heat wave of weekend, screaming Let’s have it.’

Maggie, Ed, and Phil will have to confront their shared pasts, current desires, and limits of their future lives together before the weekend is over. Every character feels vulnerable. All are facing challenges of their own - Oisin deals with an abundance of topics, from cancer, social class, panic attacks and abortion to more positive subjects of marriage, love, unbreakable bonds and so much more.

The temperature rises, the storyline becomes more and more intense, and before you know it you are at the edge of your seat, heart beating faster and faster. Oisin has cleverly created an addictive, page-turning novel that is burst with the lives of such REAL characters. He faces head of the obstacles that face young adults trying to find their place in the world, that usually occurs outside of office hours - in the evenings and weekends.

‘Why was it that her generation had to demand transformation, sex, adventure, comfort, stability, romance, conversation, intimacy, all from the one person? What’s so bad about settling?’ ❤️‍🩹

In the aim of reading more Irish books - can anyone RECOMMEND an Irish author or book for me to read? ☘️🇮🇪💚

[fatma]

DNF at 40%

* this is less sally rooney and more naoise dolan, except without any of the verve or humour of dolan's writing
* it is FAR too internal of a book - there is so little dialogue, and very few scenes that we actually get to see as they unfold
* even when we do get dialogue every line is followed by like three paragraphs of internal monologue, which drove me crazy
* essentially: its just a lot of telling and very little showing
* as a novel it has no warmth or vibrancy at all, its so depressing and all the characters are dissatisfied in a way that makes the book feel one-note and boring

begging publishers to please stop comparing literally any irish author to sally rooney

[Jess Thornton · Rating 2 out of 5]

this goes for every single relationship in this whole book - may a love like this NEVER find me

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you can tell from my rating, I really liked this novel.

Evenings and Weekends takes place mostly over a weekend. It's inhabited by several characters, most of them are in their late twenties, early thirties. There's Ed and Maggie, who discover they're expecting a baby. Maggie's best friend is Phil, he's in love and lust with Keith who's already in a relationship with another man. Phil's brother, Callum, is soon to be married to Holly. His best friend and best man at the wedding is Ed. Ed, Maggie, Phil and Callum are from the same town, they've known each other for many years.

London is one of the characters of this novel, in its incarnations as a glamorous metropolis where working people live in moldy, derelict rental places that many have to put up with if they want a roof over their heads.

This excellent debut novel is modern, fast-paced, and incredibly well-written.

McKenna digs into the characters' psyche with aplomb, masterfully unpeeling the inner selves vs the facades we all present.

[ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was decent. The plot was okay & the characters had depth, but I didn’t feel much connection to them. I did not enjoy the mass amounts of POVs & characters & felt some pieces could have been completely omitted. Not bad but not my favorite.