It’s 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.
One Day
David Nicholls
eMusic Review 0
07.15.10
David Nicholls, One Day
2010 | Label: Random House Audio
An unconventional love story that unfolds over 20 years
It’s tradition on St. Swithin’s Day (July 15) to predict from the weather what the next 40 days will bring. By setting each chapter on that titular day, author David Nicholls sets up an unconventional love story and allows it to unfold over 20 years. But any whiff of gimmick quickly fades, and it gradually begins to feel as if the reader is simply dropping in on Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley, One Day‘s are-they-or-aren’t-they twosome.
We first meet them on the occasion of their 1988 graduation, fumbling toward each other in the wee hours in her Edinburgh flat — the kind of place where “you were never more than six feet from a Nina Simone album,” Dexter observes. What follows is, if not love, then a powerful friendship. Sensitive yet vain (often wishing “there was someone on hand to take his picture”), Dexter becomes a minor celebrity and nearly loses his soul. Emma, his moral compass, is a late-bloomer with eyes on a writing career.
Nicholls (Starter for Ten, The Understudy) has a keen eye for period detail — anyone who remembers Cool Britannia will get an Oasis-size nostalgia fix from Dexter’s turn as a TV presenter. (What happened to Shed Seven, anyway?) But times change; mega clubs and acid jazz turn to children and e-mail. As they reach their mid-30s, Dexter seeks more than a “shoulder to sleep with,” and Emma fancies a child of her own. It doesn’t take a literature degree to figure out these two might rescue each other, but like any great romantic comedy, it’s hardly simple. Lacking as a lad, Anna Bentinck’s narration might be better suited to Jane Austen’s Emma than Nicholls’ Em and Dex, but she convincingly channels Emma Morley’s vulnerability. The author adds such depth to these two — as well as their satellite of lovers and flatmates — that we immediately welcome them as old friends.