Day

A Novel

By: Michael Cunningham

Narrated by: Julianne Moore

Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

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

©2024 Michael Cunningham (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Along with George Eliot, Michael Cunningham belongs in that rare group of novelists who hold the world close, with apparently infinite respect, compassion, and tenderness, all while describing the world and its inhabitants unsparingly. Day is a portrait of the life of a family, preceding, during, and immediately after the pandemic, rendered in fragments, almost as if assembling forensic evidence, not of a crime but of quiet tragedies and quiet, heroic endurance. There’s deep recognition here, bordering on revelation.” —Tony Kushner

“Michael Cunningham, the perennial master of rendering the quotidian with a profound and deeply considered eye for human frailty, returns with a book that exemplifies the hallmarks of his style: lush, erudite, voracious in its seeking. Like a true poet, he remakes the world in his descriptions, freshened with care and compassion and tinged with the radiant heat of grief. What a quietly stunning achievement.” —Ocean Vuong

“Michael Cunningham writes such eloquent, seductive sentences that we have to keep reminding ourselves to step back and pay attention to his appealing, dimensional characters and to his generous vision of childhood and adulthood, of work and love, of the pleasures and griefs of family life, and of all the rich complexities of being human.” —Francine Prose

Spectacular writing and narration

The storyline and writing are beautifully executed. It feels natural, relatable, interesting, sophisticated, and filled with heavy hearted love.

Struggling against the fear of empty lives.

Depressed early-middle- aged adults who can’t commit to relationships, and hardly understand themselves. Their ennui inevitably invades the lives of their unhappy kids.

Great prose, insular story

There is no doubt about the author’s prose writing ability. And the ability to flesh out the characters. Bad unfortunately those characters live a sheltered life in something like the east side of Manhattan, where the only threats are having to find a new apartment and enduring growing old. The entire endeavor is sweet but denuded of conflict. Sometimes it’s too clever, storytelling-wise. In the end I’m happy to hear Julianne Moore read it to me than read it myself.

Very uneven narration. Read don’t listen

I listened because I looked forward to a professional actress narrating. But in an effort to change voices for different characters, Julianne Moore changed volume and projection so drastically that I had to constantly change my volume. It was so annoying to be rewinding or keeping my fingers on the volume button I nearly gave up. Writing is excellent.

Beautiful prose

The story as such was brief and thought provoking. The reading of prose by Julian was sweet in my ears.

The poetry of some of the inner monologues

The story was thought provoking and captured the unreality of early Covid, as well as the complexity of characters’ inner and outer conflicts when times are ‘normal’. The jumps between time periods and characters sometimes left me confused, feeling like I must have inadvertently jumped ahead and missed something. There was room in the story for more…

odd narration

As others have mentioned, narration was very inconsistent! Volume fluctuated abruptly and she read very fast throughout. It didn't take away from the story (her voice and characterizations were lovely) but it was very odd. Odd enough to prompt me to write my first ever review.

A novel about sadness and love

The multiple characters. There individual stories and how they were interwoven. A lot of sadness but also love.

The writing is so beautiful

The detail and insights of this story are amazing. Each character is deeply believable and individual.

A Sliver of Life

This story caused me to reflect back on where my life was on each of the three days over those three years. Changes happened, some good some bad, but life does move on.