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Published May 2011
448 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Paperback Original. It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. They both know that the next day, after college graduation, they must go their separate ways. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. As the years go by, Dex and Em begin to lead separate lives—lives very different from the people they once dreamed they'd become. And yet, unable to let go of that special something that grabbed onto them that first night, an extraordinary relationship develops between the two.
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.
With a nod to When Harry Met Sally, this funny, emotionally engaging third novel from David Nicholls traces the unlikely relationship between Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew... . Told with toe-curlingly accurate insight and touching observation ... If you left college sometime in the eighties with no clear idea of what was going to happen next, or who your lifelong friends might turn out to be, this one's a definite for your holiday suitcase. If you didn't, it still is." - Daily Mail (UK)
"[An] instant classic...One of the most hilarious and emotionally riveting love stories you'll ever encounter." - People
"Big, absorbing, smart, fantastically readable." - Nick Hornby, from his blog
"[Nicholls] has a gift for zeitgeist description and emotional empathy that's wholly his own...[A] light but surprisingly deep romance so thoroughly satisfying." - Entertainment Weekly
"Nicholls offers sharp dialogue and wry insight that sounds like Nick Hornby at his best." - The Daily Beast (A Best Book of the Summer)
"[One Day] will leave you hungrily eating up the words. At times, you will experience 'can't breathe' laughter, then 'publicly embarrassing' sobs. Whatever emotion, all will feel uncontrollable; precisely like the lives of the characters you so badly want to see end up together." - Seattle Post Intelligencer
"Fluid, expertly paced, highly observed, and at times, both funny and moving." - Boston Globe
"Those of us susceptible to nostalgic reveries of youthful heartache and self-invention (which is to say, all of us) longed to get our hands on Nicholls's new novel...And if you do, you may want to take care where you lay this book down. You may not be the only one who wants in on the answers." - New York Times Book Review
"Who doesn't relish a love story with the right amount of heart-melting romance, disappointment, regret, and huge doses of disenchantment about growing up and growing old between quarreling meant-to-be lovers?" - Elle, Top 10 Summer Books for 2010
"A great, funny, and heart-breaking read." - The Early Show [CBS]
"Funny, sweet and completely engrossing . . . The friendship at the heart of this novel is best expressed within the pitch-perfect dialogue/banter between the two." - Very Short List
"A wonderful, wonderful book: wise, funny, perceptive, compassionate and often unbearably sad . . . the best British social novel since Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up!...Nicholls's witty prose has a transparency that brings Nick Hornby to mind: it melts as you read it so that you don't notice all the hard work that it's doing." - The Times (London)
"Just as Nicholls has made full use of his central concept, so he has drawn on all his comic and literary gifts to produce a novel that is not only roaringly funny but also memorable, moving and, in its own unassuming, unpretentious way, rather profound." - The Guardian (London)
About the Author
David Nicholls trained as an actor before making the switch to writing. He is the author of two previous novels—Starter For Ten and The Understudy. He has also written many screenplays for film and television, including the feature film adaptation of Starter For Ten. He lives in London.
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Photo: Kristofer Samuelsson
David Nicholls's most recent novel, the New York Times bestseller One Day, has sold over 2 million copies and been translated into thirty-seven languages; he also wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film adaptation starring Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway. Trained as an actor before making the switch to writing, Nicholls's previous novels include Starter for Ten (originally published in the U.S. as A Question of Attraction), adapted into a film starring James McAvoy, for which Nicholls also wrote the screenplay; and The Understudy. He continues to write for film and TV as well as writing novels and adapting them for the screen, and has twice been nominated for the BAFTA awards. He lives in London with his wife and two children.
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