The Light of Day - Hardcover

Swift, Graham

3.35

2,929 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679312455 ISBN 13: 9780679312451

Publisher: Random House of Canada Ltd, 2003

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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.”

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Review:

"Swift is at the height of his powers. In this quite dazzling meditation, Swift makes the reader believe anew in the power of love."--Chicago Tribune
"An intense meditation on love and murder. . . . Graham Swift distills emotion and incident into a hypnotic elixir. He is simply one of the most sure-handed, savvy and remarkable writers now at work." -The Washington Post Book World
"A virtuosic display of narrative skill. . . . [And] a love story of peculiar poignancy and power." -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Revelatory. . .Swift paints a potent tale of suspense, sex, betrayal and redmption. A poignant meditation on the give and take of love."--Seattle Times

"Meticulously crafted, deftly moving back and forth in time to build suspense."--The New York Times
"Takes the conventions of the mystery thriller and turns them inside out." -Chicago Sun-Times
"A masterful, first-person narrative about love's sudden revelations and its retributions. . . . Swift delivers another remarkable piece of fiction-one that sticks with you and gnaws on the soul." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Exquisite . . . Swift is not about to let go until our vision is blurry from lack of oxygen. The fierceness of this chokehold is what makes Swift such an exhilarating writer, such an essential one." -Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Swift's hypnotic, elliptical style neatly showcases his characters' psychological depths, yielding a noir-ish stunner shot through with a brutal clarity." -Vanity Fair

"Intricate . . . Swift is a virtuoso of narrative ventriloquism; he inhabits his characters through their voices. Swift manages this patterning of motives with exquisite economy." -The New York Times Book Review

"Affirms the shifting nature of human connections, and uses the mundane details of a single day to explore the broad scopes of love and passion, venality and benevolence." -The Los Angeles Times

"Mysterious . . . seductive . . . [filled with] moments of understated metaphorical brilliance." -The Boston Globe

"It is Swift's sheer, unstoppable--and at times unfathomable--affection for his characters, his tender feelings towards their everydayness, their ordinariness . . . that makes one follow their stories." --New York Review of Books

"Luminous . . . This taught thriller gradually becomes a fine-tuned investigation of how even our simplest, most personal choices can spiral uncontrollably outward." -People

"Filled with intelligent meditations." --The New Yorker

"A heartbreaking story about loving too much, not loving enough, and the hope of redemption from loveless acts. Swift is to be lauded for a fine psychological tale that, with sensitivity and heart, examines the textures of loyalty and love." -Rocky Mountain News

"Moving . . . Swift is a master of the mordant line. . . . [He] describes [each episode] with characteristic empathy and a deep, persuasive tact." --Newsday

"The plot and shifts in time are masterfully juggled, with lots of interesting asides. . . . Great sentences and memorable characters make it a good, fast read." -The Capital Times (Wisconsin)

"Mr. Swift's revision of a genre is ingenious." --The New York Sun

"Graham Swift is one of a trio of World-class British writers . . . (Martin Amis and Ian McEwan are the others) who are bringing a fierce new energy and edge to the contemporary novel. [Swift is] a superb stylist, a master of suggestive compression. The Light of Day is at once perfectly balanced and eerily incisive." -Book Magazine (4 stars)

"Draws the reader on like the best whodunnit. A profoundly artful, beautifully weighted, resonant and humane literary novel." --Daily Telegraph

"Graham Swift's genius is for putting the strangest of lies into the most provincial of English landscapes. . . . The Light of Day has a brilliantly slow, precise, careful structure [but] the story it has to tell is wildly extreme, sensational and romantic." --Guardian

"A writer of penetrating insight and formidable talent. A beautifully constructed book, which flows musically. The pace is gentle but brilliantly sustained, its association of ideas intricate but achieved with a magically delicate touch. . . . Deserves to be inhaled, greedily, in a single sitting." --Independent on Sunday

"Swift brilliantly explores one man's attempt to reshape his own destiny. The understated simplicity of Swift's writing is artistry of a higher order, seamless prose that leads the reader on a compelling journey of suspense and compassion." --Mail on Sunday

"Swift has the ability to cast a spell over a story, magically illuminating the small details of human interaction and the outside world. The tension is effortlessly sustained. Full of wonderful moments. . . . Does anyone a power of good to read prose of such sensitivity." --Sunday Express

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.

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