Book review : One Day

Last month, I started reading David Nicholl's “One Day”. I didn't know, back then, that it had been turned into a movie. I still haven't seen it.

I was charmed by the fluency of the style, the muted, though occasionally blatant humor, and the underlying sadness. The style is never openly poetic ; yet the whole novel is tinged with poetry.

Two young persons, a boy and a girl (what a surprise !) are subliminally in love. So, why does it take them twenty years to realise that they ARE in love, and get together ?

That question is at the core of the novel.

Young Emma is, from the start, a very intense, unreasonable, left wing militant.

Dexter is a selfish, ambitious, irresponsible, alcoholic TV presenter.

Neither wants a “normal” life, the sort of life that makes you say : “Is that all there is to it ?”

Over the years, they both calm down. Dexter sobers up. So does Emma (politically speaking) and they find the courage to admit what they knew all along : that they were made for each other, and no one else will do.

The sadness comes from the realisation that they have wasted a lot of years with other partners ; the nostalgia comes from the memories of all the things they should have said and done together.