Day

Day

Michael Cunningham

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

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.


From the Forum

No posts yet

Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update

Recent Reviews

Your rating:

  • Apr 06, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    This is a book that could have been a five-star read for me had I read it at a time when I was more able to immerse myself in it emotionally and intellectually. In fact, I knew basically nothing about the book going into it other than that it had been chosen as the January book for the Get Lit with All of It book club, and I enjoy following along with the NYPL loan system. 

    That being said, I had no idea I was heading in to a pandemic book, and I was struck by the lack of explicit mention of the pandemic, which was, I suppose, aided by the structural decision to drop into the story for a snapshot of a single day over the span of the year. I enjoyed the sense of fleetingness and the shifting perspectives, though I found some elements confusing (perhaps especially because of the narrator’s limited repertoire of voices). 

    The intertwining relationships between the characters is almost Love, Actually-esque, and I loved seeing how this family overlaps and engages with each other, even if there were relationships I definitely wasn’t following completely.

    This is a quiet book that deserves to be read with full intention and perhaps may have been a better read for a single sitting and on paper rather than audio .

    0
    comments 0
    Reply
  • View all reviews
    Community recs if you liked this book...