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Published in USA
Sep 2020
320 pages
Genre: Novels
Publication Information
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.
"[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)
"This book is sad, but compared to Clegg's highly acclaimed first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family, it's a Fourth of July picnic, albeit one that ruins a few characters' lives. A moody, atmospheric domestic drama with a mystery novel somewhere in its family tree." - Kirkus Reviews
"A mesmerizing book about family and memory and friendship and the long arc of life. I've loved every book by Bill Clegg, but The End of the Day might be my favorite because these characters, these quietly remarkable women, remind me of the epic lives hidden within all of us. Reading it 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
"Ambitious in scope, tender in detail, Bill Clegg's The End of the Day is a story that crosses boundaries of age, class, gender. Anyone who has a beating heart will find some part of themselves in this story." - Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes
"Delicate, deeply observed, and deftly crafted, The End of the Day is a beautiful mosaic of memory, regret, and loss. A triumphant and noble novel." - Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Little Faith
"In his utterly absorbing and socially trenchant novel, Bill Clegg's vision is both intimate and grand. He paints precise and unerring portraits of his characters and the dynamics of class that inform their lives while at the same time asking sweeping and urgent questions: What is fate? What responsibilities do we bear for the way in which our actions and our passions alter the course of one another's lives? The novel's shattering resonance emerges from its masterful construction. Clegg leads us, and his characters, toward the discovery of long-buried secrets at the same time that he shows us that the facts of a life do not always add up to the truth." - Marisa Silver, New York Times bestselling author of Little Nothing and Mary Coin
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Photo: Christian Hansen
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. His first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family, hit the New York Times bestseller list and was longlisted for the National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Bill has also written for The New York Times, Lapham's Quarterly, New York magazine, The Guardian, and Harper's Bazaar.
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