In Which I Finished One Day, And I Can’t Really Talk About It

So in an admirably short period of time following my last blog entry, I finished One Day. And I can’t talk about it.

Have you ever seen the movie The Upside of Anger? In order to explain about One Day, I kind of need to talk about this delightful movie starring Joan Allen. Throughout the film, Allen’s character deals angrily and bitterly with her life in the time after her husband left her for his Swedish secretary. She becomes an alcoholic. She rages. She says terrible things to her daughters. She sleeps with Kevin Costner.

And then, (SPOILER ALERT. FOR SERIOUS.) at the end of the film, it turns out that her AWOL husband did not leave her for his secretary. He’s been dead the whole time. I can’t even explain the tonal shift this lends the movie, and despite the fact that I just ruined the ending, I highly recommend it. The ending is shocking, and suddenly the film becomes a lesson in anger and anger management, as well as the things we would change about our lives if only we really knew what was going on.

Back to Emma and Dexter. Almost as soon as I finished lamenting what a terrible douchebag Dexter was being, he and Emma finally hooked up in the messy aftermath of his divorce from Sylvie. One fateful summer he comes to visit her in Paris (where she’s living to write). They hook up again, and start their lives together in the ensuing years.

Finally in the (book) year 2005, we find out that the husband has been dead the whole time. Well, you know what I mean. Something happens that I will under no circumstances spoil here, and suddenly the entire book takes on a new meaning, a new flavor, and a new depth of emotion that was not even touched upon in the three hundred or so pages leading up to this great reveal.

Knowing this change in retrospect, and therefore knowing the author’s true intention for his book, it would be really hard for me to go back and re-read. At least, anytime soon. It’s going on the keeper shelf, though, if only so I have a copy on hand when I tell people that they must read it, too.

So I’m ending this piecemeal review on a really bizarre note, because I can’t (won’t) tell you anything more about the book. I can’t go into the changes the characters undergo (any of them), and I can’t go into plot twisty twists without giving away the most momentous part of the story.

All I can say is that I highly recommend One Day to anyone who likes “those” sorts of books. And by “those” sorts of books, I don’t mean “romance novels.” I’m not sure I can even classify One Day as a romance. It’s more of a story about the people who come into our lives, and how we can have no way of knowing how they will affect us. The person that you’re saying goodbye to today could have a profound impact on your future. You’ve just got to go with it, and hope for the best.

In the words of all of the Sams in my life, “you never know.”