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Opening these first pages of DAY reminded me how deft Cunningham is in minor key, so elegiac. I felt myself floating in a chilly lake, with lush trees on one side, perhaps mountains to the north. Now it is April 5, 2019. The changing patterns of sunlight fill the eponymous Day. Robbie-- brother, uncle, and friend, he’s about to move out from living with his sister and bro-in-law BFF. It’s a big change. He spends some free time with his fake Instagram account, a sort of avatar-ish projection of self but similar to his attainable self. Isabel, his sister, enjoys Wolfe’s Instagram and where the “parts� come from. Robbie’s a teacher who contemplates changing professions again, to go back to before, when he chose one fork over another. Can he? go back? Is a book epoch the same as a human epic?

The April5, 2020 section emerged as the most immediate in tone and texture. I hesitate to call this a pandemic novel, as that suggests a medical setting or two. Day doesn’t feel medical, and the words Covid and coronavirus are never used. Virus hits the planet; Cunningham concerned himself with the contrasts of transitions. There’s before, then the transition from, and finally, surfacing. I’m no longer floating on the lake, I’ve walked out, shivering, and dried off, and made some determined choices. Overlaying all this was a human drama separate from Covid, and some of the conflicts and crises that these characters faced were going to be faced, regardless. The pandemic only simplified the linear part of their momentum.

Maybe, in the novel, it all happened at night, in the bitterest hours; now it is DAY, and the sun leaves nothing to the imagination, you are transparently engrossed in your life. Admittedly, events didn’t always seem to be happening (in front of me), but had always happened. I thought of Henry James periodically, even if MC and James don’t use the same tense to memorialize these moments. There’s a sense of the past in the future and the future in the past. It’s pretty sad when the present eludes us. Then Robbie does past inventory, goes through his things and remembers ex- lovers by residual material possessions. One boyfriend gave him an insultingly expensive scarf hurriedly chosen from the airport on the last leg of their togetherness as a couple. It was a vibrant but soldierly blue.

Isabel, Robbie’s sister, is contemplating leaving her husband, Dan, in 2019. She is bored and lonely with her once-almost-rock-star husband. Would their two young children adapt? I’m not sure they contemplate that directly. The adult characters were densely retrospective in this novel, in 2019. Then, it’s April 5, 2020 and they are forced to change everything from greetings to hygiene. Socially distance, work from home, take cover! I spun with it like I was in the spokes of their wheels, and in a continuous loop of thoughts. (Remember quarantine?)

What did other people do, how did they cope? Is that a quaint sentiment, to capsulize a pandemic few years? The essential lives of these protagonists emerged more strongly than their pandemic lives.

However dull my own descriptions of this book, my experience was anything but. Cunningham made me care about these characters, and then we take a bracing trip to Iceland! Iceland! Some scenes may start off rather static and sparse, but he fills it in so that it starts swaying, a 3-D shake dance as you live with their concerns.

I’ll just talk a smidge about the kids. Nathan is an awkward ten-year-old who hasn’t figured out that he’s that awkward yet, so he’s still in with the “cool� guys. They sneak around playing D&D during the pandemic, which prepubescents would do. They don’t feel mortal yet. However, Violet at 3 is afraid to open the windows and let the monster virus in. She personifies it in her head, and it pervades her life. She’s also a typical little girl who loves the frilly costume dresses that her uncle gifts her. Violet will wear them out until they crumble, she’s fiercely independent in spirit, follows no peer.

From 2019 to 2021, the various paths of this ensemble cast bring about expected and unexpected turns, all which comprise a contemporary novel of domesticity, with a classic kick to it. April 5th of each year emphasized the desire to connect and sustain; spring again, spring three times. The most we can do is observe their lives. It’s a little like life being a Zoom meeting we are pausing before pressing play again. The family is sharing a new certainty. They still have their times together and also apart. It’s possible they are learning acceptance, with a little resolve.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for sending me an ARC to review, and a real special thanks to Michael Cunningham for writing the book and sending it out to passionate readers.