Stewart O'Nan is renowned for illuminating the unexpected grace of everyday life and the resilience of ordinary people with humour, intelligence and compassion. In Henry, Himself he offers an unsentimental, moving life story of a twentieth-century everyman.

Soldier, son, lover, husband, breadwinner, churchgoer, Henry Maxwell has spent his whole life trying to live with honour. A native Pittsburgher and engineer, he's always believed in logic, sacrifice and hard work. Now, seventy-five and retired, he feels the world has passed him by. It's 1998, the American century is ending, and nothing is simple any more. His children are distant, their unhappiness a mystery. Only his wife, Emily, and dog, Rufus, stand by him.

Once so confident, as Henry's strength and memory desert him, he weighs his dreams against his regrets and is left with questions he can't answer: Is he a good man? Has he done right by the people he loves? And with time running out, what, realistically, can he hope for?

Henry, Himself is a wry, warmhearted portrait of an American original - a man who believes he's reached a dead end only to discover life is full of surprises.