One Day by David Nicholls: book review

One Day (2009) is mainly set in Britain. The premise is: 20 years, 2 people, 1 day. Two 18-year-old British university graduates, Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley, meet the day after graduation: Friday 15 July 1988. For just one night. But they keep in touch over the years.

The narrative is always on 15 July each year, until 2007. Sometimes they catch up on that day, but mostly they don’t. Dexter initially wanted to spend two years on holiday travelling the world, but this extended long beyond his expectations. Emma, meanwhile, worked as a waitress, while gradually writing a book.

The beginning and the end are the interesting parts, while the rest is a roller coaster of potentialities, boredom, and predictability. Positive elements of the format are the section headings and quotes on life – by Charles Dickens (Great Expectations), James Salter (Burning the Days), Thomas Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd), and Thomas Hardy (Tess of the d’Urbervilles). For example, the Thomas Hardy quote at the beginning of Part Four is – ‘They spoke very little of their mutual feelings: pretty phases and warm attentions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.’

Is it a love story? Not really. It’s an ‘almost a love story’ but circumstances – and the insecurities of both Dexter and Emma – conspire against them, until … one day.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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