One Day is a truly great novel. It's a high concept pitch - a friendship / potential romance that spans twenty years, with each chapter following the events of one specific day on consecutive years (July 15th; St. Swithins Day) in the life of its two protagonists. It begins in 1988 when Emma and Dexter meet and almost get it together on the night of their graduation. Though romance doesn't immediately follow, they do become friends whose lives are inextricably linked over the course of the next two decades, as Emma pursues a frustrated career as a writer via McJobs and teaching, and Dexter becomes a minor league TV star and falls under the wheels of life in the fastlane. Much of the fun is seeing where they end up as each year goes by, the ups and downs of life we can all appreciate - especially those of us who grew up in the 80s, then had to grow up some more in the 90s, and might still be at it in the new millennium. Only once does writer David Nicholls (Starter For 10, The Understudy) slip up, opening the chapter on the year 2000 with a recap of the previous few months, rather than leaping straight in to the day on question then gradually revealing how we got there. It's easy to forgive him this one tiny indiscretion though, especially when you read what follows...
Which I can't write about. I won't write about. I won't even allude to. Suffice it to say, this novel doesn't always take the path you'd expect. Which is, ultimately, what sets it far apart from your average romcom. It's also what raises it above your average Nick Hornby relationshipper - and there's no higher praise from a Hornby fan as big as I am. Days later, these characters remain alive in my mind, like friends I saw only last week. I wish I could go back and see them again. One Day deserves to be read by everybody.
No, this, she felt, was real life and if she wasn't as curious or passionate as she once had been, that was only to be expected. It would be inappropriate, undignified, at thirty-eight, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour and intensity of a twenty-two-year-old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry, crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photo booths, taking a whole day to make a compilation tape, asking people if they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or T.S. Eliot or, God forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step backwards, and who would blame them?
