There are a number of books that I’ve read in a single sitting. Lots of Nancy Drew and Baby-Sitters’ Club in the days of yore and more recently, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Songbook by Nick Hornby and just a few days ago One Day by David Nicholls (although, technically, it took two days as I was 30 pages short at the end on the first). The latter two don’t have much in common–one is a memoirish collection of essays about music fandom and the other is a story about two people who weave in and out of each other’s lives over the course of twenty some years–but their authors are rather similar. Both are British men who write about men living and loving in contemporary London in sharp, thoughtful prose that would be dismissed as “chick-lit” if they were women. (The extent to which the term chick-lit and the dismissal of women as a second-tier or niche writers annoy me is a topic for another day.) Hornby, I’ve been a fan of for a long time. Nicholls is a recent and delightful discovery.

Nicholls wrote Starter for Ten, which was made into a cute little movie with Rebecca Hall and James McAvoy. One Day is a more recent work that I’ve heard praised several times (and is also getting Hollywood treatment). I read it on my way to my cousin’s wedding (three flights, including a redeye), and such a wonderfully thoughtful trip through the lives of two adults who met in college was a good companion on a trip to mark a family milestone. It had been almost eight years since I’d traveled to Colombia, and as with each visit, this one made me wish I could see my family more often. It was also a reminder of how you can continue to love people you don’t see every day–even if, in one decade, all you get is one day with them.

In Nicholls’ book, Dexter and Emma share one memorable day their last week at college, and Nicholls takes us through the next twenty years via glimpses of where their lives are on the anniversary of that encounter–not their first but the one that would mark the beginning of a relationship full of joy, heartbreak, missed chances and, though at times disfuctional, love. It’s an easy read, but not a simple one. Nicholls delves carefully into the motivations, fears and follies of being an adult and feeling less than what you’d hoped on the night you graduated and the world was supposed to be your oyster. To say too much about the friendship between Dexter and Emma might divulge too many details that are best left to be read and savored. But theirs is a love that makes you appreciate what it means to really be grown up and to have shared the ride with the people that knew you when you weren’t so much.

One Day by David Nicholls

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lovely. Read in one long day of travel.



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