David Nicholls’ One Day (2009)

David Nicholls’ One Day (2009)

Emma and Dexter have just graduated from Edinburgh University. Emma has a double first and is determined to conquer the world. Dexter has a lower second and vague ideas of travelling. They seem like complete opposites. Yet on the night of their graduation they form an unwitting friendship which takes twenty years to settle into something more.

It is this premise that Nicholls bases the bulk of the story around; the twenty years it takes to develop this friendship into functional marriage. One Day explores the nature of a male/female relationship through time; its complications, implications and whether a friendship can ever really stay as just this. Emma finally achieves her ambition to become a writer, but must work move back home with her parents, work as a waitress in a degrading tex-mex restaurant, become a secondary school teacher, and move to Paris and back again before this happens. Dexter too finds happiness by the end of the novel; unexpectedly in owning a specialised foods café. He too goes through years of unhappiness before coming to this ending; travelling as a foreign language teacher, presenting a crude TV show named ‘Largin’ It’ and setting up a media production company that was doomed from the outset. What ultimately makes these characters happy however is finding each other, and consolidating it through marriage.

One Day is a novel that has experienced a great reception from its readers. It won the 2010 Galaxy Book of the Year award, has sold well over one million copies, and has been translated into thirty-one languages. As well as this it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for three months and was the highest selling British novel of 2010. It is fair to say that millions of readers have enjoyed Nicholls’ book, but what actually is it that appeals to the reader? Is it the plot, the structure, lexis or painful issues dealt with?

The actual plot itself is relatively unexciting. Nicholls simply follows the lives of two very-average people, struggling with everyday problems; failed relationships, parental arguments, missed opportunities and lacks of self-confidence. Nothing exceptionally dramatic happens until the end of the novel with Emma’s death. The novel centres more on the internal conflicts and struggles of the characters.

However the structure of the novel is something relatively unique. Nicholls gives us an insight into Emma and Dexter’s lives on the same day each year. The 15^th of July. The years span from 1988, when they have just graduated, through to 2007, with Dexter recovering from Emma’s death. Through this clever use of structure Nicholls manages to keep us involved in the characters lives for twenty years. A challenge any author would find hard to execute. To break up any monotony a reader might experience from flipping through these years Nicholls further splits the book into five parts: ‘Early Twenties’, ‘Late Twenties’, ‘Early Thirties’, ‘Late Thirties’, and ‘Three Anniversaries’. Not only does this break up the structured pattern, but further reinforces the characters ages; reminding the reader of the journey of maturity they are experiencing with Emma and Dexter. ‘Three Anniversaries’ ends the novel, and abruptly changes the chronological structure the rest of the novel methodically follows. It jumps around in time, relaying all the most important parts of the characters journeys; their meeting, the first year after Emma’s death, the first day they spent together, the second anniversary of Emma’s death, and the third. This part provides a nice summing up of the characters lives, and consequently helps to eliminate the morbidness of Emma’s death towards the end of the novel. The effect of setting the whole novel on a single day each year is interesting. It borders on the edge of an epistolary novel; some chapters are letters to Dexter and vice versa. However it is more like flicking through a photo album of their lives. We see snapshot after snapshot of their relationship. This structure creates an exciting effect on the pace of the novel. At the end of each chapter we are left dangling, desperate to know what will happen next. Yet at the start of the next chapter we are plunged into their lives a year later, and thus are left grappling for lost time, playing catch-up. For example at the end of chapter nine Emma storms out of restaurant saying to Dexter ‘I don’t think you’re the person I used to know. You’re not my friend anymore.’ The reader is left on a cliffhanger; will they reconcile, or never speak again? Yet chapter ten starts with Emma having an affair; ‘Emma Morely lies on her back on the floor of the headmaster’s office’. The reader is made to read on for the answer, thus playing a game of catch-up.

Nicholls style of writing is also an attribute to the novel. It is quick, fluent and unaffected. Nicholls never resorts to high-fluted language to explain the romantic or beautiful, but rather uses everyday verbal language. This language, whilst being very easy to read, also reflects Emma and Dexter’s situation. This is a novel about normal people, in everyday situations. By using a language readers can relate to Nicholls reinforces the relatable situations of the novel.

Nicholls characterisation of the protagonists is also admirable. Although Emma and Dexter are somewhat archetypal figures, (the strong female student campaigning for change, and the lazy student relying on his parents wealth) Nicholls still creates realistic figures. This believability seems to derive from the character’s flaws. Although Emma appears as an Elizabeth Bennett: strong and sturdy despite the odds, she does in fact end up in one affair, and a hopelessly unhappy relationship with a failing comedian. Dexter too, although seems to have a good lifestyle hosting a late-night TV programme, goes through multiples of failed relationships and seems to lose all self-worth for many years. The very flaws in these characters are what makes them three-dimensional and relatable. Throughout the book the reader’s attitude towards the characters can also change. For example, at the beginning of the book Dexter is a deplorable character, yet in the final chapters, with Emma gone, Dexter has been transformed into an adoring fatherly character.

However despite the success of the characters, structure and writing, I do have one major complaint; Emma’s death. My complaint is not with the way Nicholls handles her death. This, in fact seems faultless. Nicholls use of understatement is haunting in the way it reflects the disbelief felt after a sudden death; ‘Then Emma Mayhew dies, and everything she thought or felt vanishes and is gone forever’. This sentence is all Nicholls uses to describe the death. There is no description of dying moments, or the wailing of her family’s grief. My complaint is the very use of Emma’s death as a plot device. It seems like a cop-out on Nicholls part in a bid to add dramatic tension, or a dramatic finish. In a novel that deals so intrinsically with the inner struggles of these relatable characters, this sudden drama seems unbelievable. The character’s themselves have already experienced a great amount of grief in the novel (for example Emma’s failed relationship or Dexter’s mothers’ death.) that her death seems unnecessary if Nicholls was trying to emphasise the struggle we face in life.

Although the way Nicholls deals with Emma’s death is good, the very use of such a dramatic scene seems to take away from the believability and grittiness of the novel as a whole.

So what is it that appeals to the reader? Plot, structure, language or issues dealt with? I certainly found the structure and language of One day exceptional. And these two are what carried a relatively boring plot along. The death of a protagonist was questionable, however did add a drama to this plot, which some readers may find intriguing. One Day is an easy-read. It requires very little from its reader in effort and thus would be perfect for a holiday or bedtime read. Nicholls, unashamedly, writes a story simply about two people; their struggles, achievements and relationship together.

By Abigail Gascoyne