Day: A Novel (Unabridged)
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTELLER • An “exquisite” (The Boston Globe) exploration of love and loss, the struggles and limitations of family life—and how we all must learn to live together and apart—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours
“The only problem with Michael Cunningham’s prose is that it ruins you for mere mortals’ work. He is the most elegant writer in America.”—The Washington Post
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Harper’s Bazaar, Chicago Public Library, Lit Hub, Paste, Kirkus Reviews
April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are 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, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. And then there is Nathan, age ten, taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while his sister, Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.
April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the cozy brownstone is starting to feel more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled sleights and frustrated sighs. And dear 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—and with what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and how they might go on.
“[Cunningham] is one of love’s greatest witnesses.”—Los Angeles Times
“An absolutely stunning portrait of humanity . . . a masterpiece.”—Literary Hub
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Michael Cunningham, best-selling author of The Hours, has a knack for writing quiet fiction that pierces the heart. Day is the story of adult siblings Isabel and Robbie, told over the course of one day in 2019, 2020, and 2021. When we first meet them, Robbie’s looking to move out of the top floor of Isabel’s Brooklyn home so his niece and nephew can have more space, and Isabel is reckoning with the growing distance between her and her devoted husband, Dan. Cunningham deftly portrays a family on edge, showing how small cracks can become fissures, especially when you throw in extreme circumstances like the claustrophobic COVID-19 lockdowns. Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore’s vivid characterizations—especially of the growing tensions between Isabel and Dan’s kids, sullen Nathan and perpetually worried Violet—make the emotional impact of the novel even richer. A moving and sad story laced with dark humor and beautiful sentences, Day is one of Cunningham’s finest.
Customer Reviews
Julianne Moore narrates like a dream…
but the novel isn’t great.