As the world changes around them, a family weathers the storms of growing up, growing older, falling in and out of love, losing the things that are most precious—and learning to go on—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours
April 5, 2019 : In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, troubled husband and wife, are both a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, has created a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. Meanwhile Nathan, age ten, is taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.
April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the brownstone is feeling more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe, while Nathan attempts to skirt her rules. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled jabs and frustrated sighs. And beloved Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts—and his secret Instagram life—for company.
April 5, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality—with what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and how they might go on.
From the brilliant mind of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, Day is a searing, exquisitely crafted meditation on love and loss and the struggles and limitations of family life—how to live together and apart.
DAY
Michael Cunningham
I read DAY in exactly one day. 24 hours. A lot can happen in a DAY.
DAY by Michael Cunningham follows a family for one morning in 2019, one afternoon in 2020, and one evening in 2021. It’s about a lot of things, it travels great distances, and its short length in no way signifies its depth.
I got swept up in DAY and put everything else down to finish as fast as I could. I was enamored by Cunninghams’ use of love, examples of what family is, and insight into what we’re all doing here together. I appreciated the unique relationship dynamics, incredible usage of language, and mastery of words.
I took away a lot of things from DAY to think about for some time to come. The biggest takeaway was more of a question and realization: When do you dig in and plant roots-endure? And when do you uproot, and migrate in search of a fairer environment elsewhere?
What are the casualties for each choice?
Time is passing whether you do that big thing you’ve been avoiding or not. How do you want to look back over that time that has passed?
DAY comes out on November 14th, what will you be reading? Hopefully, this!
Thanks to Netgalley, Random House Publishing Group – Random House, and Random House for the advanced copy! It was a pleasure!!
DAY…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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