My Goodreads and Amazon review of Day: A Novel by Michael Cunningham (Rating 5) – Ourselves, Only More So. Day: A Novel by Michael Cunningham tracks the lives of a family and its satellites — five adults and three children in all — on the same April date in three consecutive years: 2019, 2020, and 2021, before, during, and after the height of the pandemic. Compared to many people, they are not very inconvenienced. One is tempted to dismiss them as self-absorbed middle class New Yorkers, yet Cunningham persuades us that these well-intentioned lost souls are worth our compassion. The narrative is very interior; Cunningham probes the minds of each character, child as well as adult, and excavates their often incompatible desires. As a novelist myself who uses multiple points of view (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page, I admire Cunningham’s ability to make each voice unique. I was particularly struck by the author’s choice to make the children, rather than the adults, ruminate about death. For children, life itself merits investigation, so death is no different. Adults, aware that their time on earth is ebbing, dare not dwell on its demise. By the book’s end, the world has changed, each person’s situation has changed, yet their relationships to work, home, and one another remain an unchanging loop. Time moves on, day to day and year to year, yet we remain who we are, only more so.
Eight characters, three years, one pandemic
Why writers read: “Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.” – Jane Smiley
