Synopses & Reviews
Following his acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Did You Ever Have a Family,
Bill Clegg returns with a deeply moving, emotionally resonant second
novel about the complicated bonds and breaking points of friendship, the
corrosive forces of secrets, the heartbeat of longing, and the
redemption found in forgiveness.
A retired widow in rural Connecticut wakes to an unexpected visit
from her childhood best friend whom she hasn't seen in forty-nine
years.
A man arrives at a Pennsylvania hotel to introduce his estranged
father to his newborn daughter and finds him collapsed on the floor of
the lobby.
A sixty-seven-year-old taxi driver in Kauai receives a phone call from the mainland that jars her back to a traumatic past.
These seemingly disconnected lives come together as
half-century-old secrets begin to surface. It is in this moment that
Bill Clegg reminds us how choices — to connect, to betray, to
protect — become our legacy.
Deeply observed and beautifully written, this novel is a feat of
storytelling, capturing sixty years within the framework of one fateful
day.
Review
"Clegg delivers a
thoughtful, well-observed story....The splendid prose and orchestrated
maneuvering will keep readers turning the pages and send them back to
the beginning, to read it all over again." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"An exquisitely structured
book of reckonings. Clegg is a fearless investigator of the past and how
it, no matter how buried we believe it to be, will always rise.
The End of the Day left me shaken." Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown and Others, Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Reading [The End of the Day]
is like studying a stained-glass window up close, each piece bright and
sharply cut, but when you step back and see it as a whole you discover a
large, beautiful, mysterious work of art." David Ebershoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife
About the Author
Bill Clegg is a literary agent in New York and the author of the bestselling memoirs
Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man and
Ninety Days. The author of the novels
Did You Ever Have a Family and
The End of the Day, he has written for the
New York Times,
Lapham's Quarterly,
New York magazine,
The Guardian, and
Harper's Bazaar.