Everyday People — Stewart O'Nan

This novel of Pittsburgh, by the author of Last Night at the Lobster, “celebrates the lives of everyday people in an extraordinary way” (San Francisco Chronicle).
 
Pittsburgh, 1998: Chris “Crest” Tolbert is eighteen years old, a soon-to-be father, and partially paralyzed after an accident that left his best friend dead. As he navigates the challenges of new fatherhood and life as a paraplegic, Crest must also negotiate his relationships with his born-again brother and his father, who has been cheating on Crest's mother with a younger man.
 
In Everyday People, acclaimed novelist Stewart O'Nan offers a multifaceted portrait of Crest and of East Liberty, the African American neighborhood he calls home. The result is “a living, breathing history lesson that brings together a set of compelling voices that make real and immediate the ups and downs of a black urban community” (Chicago Tribune).
 
“Like Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio or Gloria Naylor's Women of Brewster Place, Everyday People weaves its tale elliptically. . . . O'Nan creates vivid interior worlds, evoking conflicts and joys with astonishing grace and agility.” -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette