Oisín McKenna’s debut novel, Evenings and Weekends (2024), is a contemporary ensemble novel set during a sweltering heatwave in 2019 London. The narrative follows an interconnected group of characters whose lives are on the verge of profound change. As a whale becomes stranded in the Thames, igniting a citywide media frenzy, a young couple, Maggie and Ed, grapple with an unplanned pregnancy, financial instability, and the secrets that threaten to tear them apart. The novel explores themes of The Contradiction of Urban Freedom and Precarity as the characters struggle to build lives in an expensive metropolis, The Conflict Between Personal Desire and Assumed Responsibilities, and The Pitfalls of Performing for Social Acceptance.

McKenna, who was born in Dublin and lives in London, has a background in experimental theater, and his novel was supported by grants from the Arts Councils of Ireland and England. The story is rooted in the sociopolitical anxiety of pre-COVID-19, Brexit-era Britain, capturing a specific moment of millennial uncertainty defined by the gig economy, a housing crisis, and growing climate dread. Upon its release, Evenings and Weekends received critical acclaim, with reviewers drawing comparisons to the work of other celebrated London novelists like Zadie Smith for its kaleidoscopic portrait of the city and its vibrant, multigenerational cast.

This guide refers to the 2024 Mariner Books edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of antigay bias, bullying, sexual violence, racism, pregnancy loss, pregnancy termination, substance use, emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, illness, mental illness, death, animal cruelty, animal death, sexual content, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Set in London during a sweltering June 2019 heatwave, the novel unfolds against the backdrop of a central event: A northern bottlenose whale becomes stranded in the Thames on a Friday, sparking a media frenzy of memes and environmental debates.

Ed Seymour, a bicycle courier, spots the whale while making deliveries and believes he is hallucinating, a recurring fear he has had since taking LSD the night he learned of his girlfriend Maggie’s unplanned pregnancy. Ed is haunted by the recent death of his father, Peter, a laborer who died at 50 from asbestos-related lung cancer, leaving Ed acutely aware of mortality and financial precarity. Ed and Maggie can barely afford their damp apartment in the East London borough of Hackney. They plan to move to Basildon, the Essex town where they both grew up, to live more cheaply near family.

That evening, after buying ingredients for a dinner to celebrate Maggie’s last day at the café where she has worked for eight years, Ed stops at Liverpool Street station. A man in a suit invites Ed to follow him into a toilet cubicle. Gripped by desire and the sense that his youth is slipping away, Ed approaches, but before anything happens, Phil, Maggie’s best friend since childhood, bursts through the door, having followed the same man in a parallel impulse for anonymous sex. Ed bluffs awkwardly about his reasons for being there. Phil leaves quickly, agonizing over whether to tell Maggie.

Phil and Maggie have been inseparable since growing up together on the same estate in Basildon. Now 28, Phil works an unfulfilling office job and lives in a warehouse in Bermondsey with several housemates, including Keith, with whom he has a complicated romantic and sexual relationship. Keith is also in an open relationship with Louis, and though Phil insists the arrangement is casual, he is deeply attached to Keith. Nine years earlier, Phil experienced a traumatic sexual encounter in Burgess Park, where a stranger coerced him into sex while he was cruising. Phil has experienced sex as dissociative and shame-laden, except with Keith, who makes Phil feel present in his body.

Back in Basildon, Phil’s mother, Rosaleen, struggles with trying to tell Phil that she has been recently diagnosed with cancer. After Rosaleen tells Callum, her older son and Ed’s best friend, the news, Callum visits Ed and Maggie in a drunken state and reveals the diagnosis to Ed. Rosaleen now fears that Callum is too upset to keep it from Phil. Across the street from Rosaleen lives Joan Seymour, Ed’s recently widowed mother, who sits on the pavement every evening in her armchair, still setting out her late husband’s empty chair. The two women share a cautious, deepening friendship.

Maggie, instead of going home to pack, goes to karaoke with her friend Ali and discovers Phil is throwing a solstice party at the warehouse the following night. Phil did not invite her directly, which makes her feel excluded from his social world.

The next morning, Phil and Keith walk to Bermondsey Beach to see the whale, holding hands the entire way. Phil then meets Maggie at Hampstead Heath. She dreads telling him about the pregnancy, fearing his judgment: In their shared world of queer parties and art events, having a baby with a man in the suburbs feels like a betrayal of the identity she has built. She announces the pregnancy, and Phil instinctively responds as though it were bad news. Maggie is stung and adds that they are moving to Basildon. This sparks an argument between them; Maggie accuses Phil of not taking her life seriously, and he feels diminished by her choices. Ed later reassures Maggie by describing things and places he wants to show their child, including an invented river monster with its own language.

That afternoon, Rosaleen visits Phil in London, hoping to tell him about her cancer. Their conversation escalates into an argument about Phil’s distance and Callum’s stability, and they part on tense terms. Rosaleen never manages to mention her diagnosis. Later, Keith tells Phil that their landlord has issued a one-month eviction notice. When Keith reveals that he and Louis are considering moving to Folkestone together, Phil, devastated, retreats into defensive indifference, telling Keith that their relationship is not serious. Keith is visibly hurt. Phil flees to his room and cries. Later that evening, Phil confronts Keith about his chronic unreliability. Keith reveals that Phil’s aloofness makes him feel unlovable. Moved, Phil opens up about his trauma for the first time. Keith holds him tightly.

Rosaleen and Joan drive to the Dartford Crossing to watch the whale’s barge pass underneath. As the barge approaches, Rosaleen involuntarily shouts the name “Pauline,” her closest friend from childhood in Dublin, who died young. Rosaleen and Pauline shared intimacy in their youth, culminating in Rosaleen kissing Pauline’s bare back once in bed. Joan invites Rosaleen to karaoke, where Rosaleen overcomes decades of repression to sing Cher’s “Believe” on stage.

That night, the warehouse party brings all the characters together. Ed, wandering through the crowd, reflects on his gender confusion, unsure that he is a man. He finds Phil and tries to apologize for an incident at school when Ed, pressured by classmates, smashed an egg on Phil’s head. Phil deflects. Kyle Connolly, a childhood neighbor, approaches Maggie and alludes to Ed’s attraction to men. Phil admits to Maggie that he knew about Ed’s history with men but was afraid to tell her because of what she would think. Ed and Maggie argue on the way home, causing Maggie to express uncertainty in their relationship.

On Sunday morning, Ed confesses his sexual history to Maggie, including one encounter with Phil when he was 14 and his near-hookup at the Tube station on Friday. Maggie tells him she does not think they can continue. Back at the warehouse, Phil wakes next to Keith after a transformative night in which Phil was, for the first time, fully present in his body during sex. At a McDonald’s, they exchange declarations of love.

Off the coast of Margate, a marine biologist named Valerie pronounces the whale dead, crushed by the weight of its own body. Maggie finds art supplies on her doorstep, sent by Phil with a note encouraging her to make work again. After sharing her doubts with Ed, Maggie has an abortion at Homerton Hospital. Ed drives her home, extending his care for her.

Phil takes a day off and visits Basildon, where Rosaleen finally tells him she has cancer. The conversation is sparse, but the attempt to connect is significant. Rosaleen undergoes surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy with the support of her husband, Steve. 

Sometime later, Callum marries his fiancée, Holly. Ed is the best man, and Phil is a groomsman. Maggie, who has been subletting in Berlin since the abortion, returns for the wedding and shares a warm exchange with Ed, signaling their continued friendship. Phil and Keith slip out and walk the high street of Phil’s hometown, stopping on the overpass where Phil once fantasized about kissing Ed. Keith kisses him there instead.

In the final chapter, Rosaleen, Steve, Phil, and Callum fly to Dublin. Rosaleen visits Pauline’s grave and climbs Bray Head. From the summit, she tells Phil about Pauline and the poetry she wrote.