I admire Michael Cunningham's writing, and I think that his covid-novel, Day, is very well written. As far as covid-novels go, Day is definitely one of the better ones I've read, but maybe the books are (as a group) starting to hit a little too close to home for me to continue seeking them out. We all lived through the Year from Hell that 2020 was, and I suspect that most of us suffered some fairly traumatic experiences along the way. But now I'm finding that the more fiction I read about the covid experience, the more difficult it becomes for me to read another one.
The thing I most admire about Day is its plot construction. Cunningham focuses on the small, extended family of Dan, Isabella, their son Nathan, and Nathan's little sister Violet. In addition, we meet Dan's brother, Garth, and the mother of his son, along with Isabella's brother, Robbie, a single, gay man who until just prior to the pandemic is living with Dan and Isabella. The really clever thing is how Cunningham slices the novel into three distinct parts: "April 5, 2019," "April 5, 2020," and "April 5, 2021," and uses that device to show just how much the family has been impacted by the previous year's experience.
Rather than risk revealing spoilers, I'll just say that the family is very different from one year to the next. Several members were already unhappy about their lives even before the pandemic, but being isolated in close quarters in such a stressful situation does not do the family any favors. In the novel's final section, it becomes obvious just how different each of the main characters now are from the ones readers met at the beginning of the novel, and how unlikely it is that any of them will ever be even remotely the same ever again.
Michael Cunningham is an amazing writer...that's probably why I found Day to be as disturbing a story as I found it, but that's also why I think you all should at least give this one strong consideration as part of your 2024 reading.
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| Michael Cunningham jacket photo |
It is a really clever plot device! The only book by Cunningham I've read is The Hours, which I did like. And I've got this one on my TBR list thanks to you...but when I'll get around to actually reading it is anyone's guess. ;D
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. If I don't quit adding to my TBR list, especially Kindle books, it's going to double this year - and it almost did that last year. Scary.
DeleteYou have me curious to read this one. I've just seen the movie of The Hours long ago, which I recall being good. I've read a few pandemic novels and I keep reading them, which is crazy. Probably I liked Elizabeth Strout's covid / pandemic novel best about Lucy by the Sea. I probably wouldnt read pandemic novels if a family member had died from it. My Dad got it in 2020 and it was scary then for a person in their 80s especially. Thank goodness he recovered.
ReplyDeleteSome of the covid novels have really left me in down moods. My father died in 2020 not long before he would have turned 99. Even though he didn't die directly from covid, I guess I'm more deeply scarred by not being allowed to be at his deathbed than I though I was. We were then unable to attend his funeral in person and had to watch a streaming of a service instead. I think it all bothers me more now than it did in 2020 and we lived through the actual events.
DeleteI too have only read The Hours but I think I will read this at some point so very interesting to get your perspective. The weirdest Covid-novel I have read is Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult (I can't tell you what made it so bizarre without spoiling it). I prefer Tom Lake where it is very subtly in the background, although it's the premise for the main character's three daughters being home.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. In Tom Lake it was a key element of the plot without actually BEING the plot, and that approach worked really well for me as a reader. Now I'm really curious about the Picoult novel - but I'm really going to have to take a breather.
DeleteThis plot device is very interesting and it's a testement to how we never know what's coming down the pike but depending on its severity we are different people before, during and after.
ReplyDeleteIt was the first world-disaster that most of us ever actually lived through, and it has to changed each of us in numerous different ways. I know that I think differently in covid's aftermath about what is truly important and what is important only for the moment.
DeleteI haven't read a Covid novel in a while and am not looking for them either. 2020 was indeed a horrible year, to put behind us.
ReplyDeleteI'm watching K dramas on tv and enjoying them in place of books these days. Have a good week.
I had really looked forward to seeing how contemporary novelists were going to handle covid, but I know now. My curiosity has been satisfied. I don't think that I'll aggressively avoid covid novels, but I certainly will never seek them out again.
DeleteThose Korean dramas seem to have come out of nowhere ever since South Korea's success at the Oscars a couple of years back. I have enjoyed some of those myself.
I don't know that I have read any books that feature Covid yet. No, wait, a spy book I read recently, JUDAS 62, mentioned the problems that an intelligence group had because of Covid, but it was the focus of the story.
ReplyDeleteYou make this book sound worth reading, so when I get the chance I will give it a try. I haven't read anything by Cunningham.
It's not the happiest book you'll ever read, that's for sure, but it does capture the stress and other effects that living in near isolation had on so many people during 2020. It's kind of strange, because while it was happening I didn't think I was reacting the way that I now feel I must have. The covid novels have made me understand what we all survived is still impacting most of us in ways that we hardly realize. But I may be done with covid novels for a while now.
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