Review: One Day

Synopsis

'I can imagine you at forty,' she said, a hint of malice in her voice. 'I can picture it right now.'

He smiled without opening his eyes. 'Go on then.'

15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways.

So where will they be on this one day next year?

And the year after that? And every year that follows?

Quick Thoughts

“You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle” David Nichols - One Day 

I started One Day a few weeks ago then dropped it as I made the mistake of reading Mike Gayle's His and Hers and the obsession with Mike Gayle took me away from Dexter and Emma for the next two weeks. So when I finished Dinner For Two on Friday I picked up One Day only to obsess about it and ultimately finish it in two days.

One Day is centered around two characters Dexter and Emma and follows them over a twenty year period.
 Dexter Meyhew an over indulged, pampered, public schooled turned TV presenter is an embodiment of arrogance and self assurance. He takes life by the  horns, achieves success only to turn into a chaotic self destructive mess. Emma Morsely is a middle class, waitress and struggling writer who lacks confidence misses opportunities and feels sorry for herself. She is a mess also but a self assured mess, a mess type of person who has an affair but justifies it with at least there are no children involved type mess. She controls her mess of a life with Ian only breaking up with him after wasting so much time.

This a charming, almost too realistic splurge into the lives of two people who avoid facing the truth until they have no choice but to. As a Nineties child I feel cheated as I feel like I should have lived in the glorious 1980's with trips to Paris and endless opportunities and excessive wealth instead of having to face David Cameroon's recession.

If there is a writer out there whose mastered irony, cynicism with a hint humor its Nichols. He masters all three without batting an eyelid. I was fuming as to how good this book is.  The pages aren't filled with inanity or false humor, the characters are complex and open yet you never truly know what the next page will hold. Nichols reminds us of the hopes and dreams of the those in the early twenties as well as showing the depressing reality of struggling with age.  I live in awe of David Nichols.