Day

A quietly stunning 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.

"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." — Tony Kushner

A Harper's Bazaar and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year.

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, the wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft, is trying to get over his most recent boyfriend while living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online. His impending move out of the house threatens to break the family apart. Meanwhile, Nathan, age ten, is taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while his sister, Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.

As the world goes into lockdown, the cozy brownstone starts 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.

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.