Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley spend the night of July 15,
1988, together after their graduation from Edinburgh University. Each
chapter in One Day zeroes in
on July 15 of the next 20 years. Best friends for most of that time,
Dex and Em secretly long for each other, but year after year the timing
doesn’t seem right for them to get together. Good-looking, charming
Dexter finds success early on as a TV presenter for shows that give him
some fame if not intellectual creds. Emma’s success is slow to come;
she works as a waitress and then a teacher in a rough school before her
children’s novel takes off and spawns a series of sequels. Emma has
either no romance or the wrong kind. Dexter is an alcohol- and
drug-addicted philanderer. In his 30s he thinks he’s settling down, but
the marriage, which produces a daughter, fizzles before the second
anniversary—just as Dexter’s TV career is tanking. Unemployed and
down-and-out, he finally admits his feelings for Emma and finds a
measure of happiness in their love and in a new deli-café venture Emma
urges on him.
One Day, however, is not a
happily ever story where the culmination of the relationship ends the
book, nor is the friendship that comes before less important. What
Nicholls is examining is a relationship in time, with support and
squabbles, laughter and tears, separation and coming back together.
Nicholls clearly believes that life and love are complicated—by missed
opportunities, compromises, mistakes, and cruel twists of fate. The
book is funny and sad, understated yet perceptive. Although one might
quibble with an emotionally manipulative ending and question what Emma
sees in Dexter, One Day is
better written and more insightful than the usual love story.
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