The Light of Day - Hardcover

Swift, Graham

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375415491 ISBN 13: 9780375415494

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2003

Synopsis

The Booker Prize-winning author of Last Orders traces a day in the life of divorced private investigator George Webb as he evaluates his past as a police officer, unpromising prospects, and all-consuming relationship with a former client. 75,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Graham Swift was born in 1949 in London. He is the author of six previous novels and a short story collection. His work has been widely translated and has won prizes internationally, including the Booker Prize for Last Orders.

From the Inside Flap

The Light of Day combines a powerful love story and a narrative of intense suspense into a brilliant and tender novel about what drives people to extremes of emotion. As in his Booker-winning novel Last Orders, Swift transforms ordinary lives through extraordinary storytelling.

This new novel from Graham Swift -- his first since the Booker Prize-winning Last Orders -- is the work of a master storyteller. The Light of Day is a luminous and gripping tale of love, murder and redemption.

George Webb is a divorced ex-policeman turned private investigator, a man whose prospects seemed in ruins not so long ago. Following the course of a single, dazzling day in George s life, the novel illuminates not only his past but his now all-consuming relationship with a former client.

Intimate and intricate in its evocation of daily existence, The Light of Day achieves a singular intensity and almost unbearable suspense. Tender and humorous in its depiction of life s surface, Swift explores the depths and extremities of what lies within us and how, for better or worse, it s never too late to discover what they are.

Excerpt from The Light of Day
Two years ago and a little more. October still, but a day like today, blue and clear and crisp. Rita opened my door and said, Mrs. Nash.

I was already on my feet, buttoning my jacket. Most of them have no comparisons to go on -- it s their first time. It must feel like coming to a doctor. They expected something shabbier, seedier, more shaming. The tidy atmosphere, Rita s doing, surprises and reassures them. And the vase of flowers.

White chrysanthemums, I recall.

Mrs. Nash, please have a seat.

I could be some high-street solicitor. A fountain-pen in my fingers. Doctor, solicitor -- marriage guidance counsellor. You have to be a bit of all three.

The usual look of plucked-up courage, swallowed-back hesitation, of being somewhere they d rather not be.

My husband is seeing another woman.

Edition details

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0375415491
• ISBN 13: 9780375415494
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 323