Two in one day (novel)
Two in one day is the third book by the English writer David Nicholls . The original edition was published in 2009 under the title One Day by Hodder & Stoughton , London . The German translation was published in 2010 by the Verlag Kein & Aber ( ISBN 3036955429 ). In November 2011, the film was released , the script of which Nicholls also wrote.
action
The book begins with Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew spending the night of July 15, 1988 after graduating from college in Edinburgh (without sleeping together) before they part ways again. The two are in their early twenties and very different. Nevertheless, they cannot forget each other and although they keep losing sight of each other over the next 16 years, they always think of the other. Dexter stumbles into a career as a presenter to the fullest, goes to parties, gets drunk and just has fun. Emma, on the other hand, doesn't quite know what to do with her life, tries different jobs, writes books and keeps thinking about Dexter.
They go on vacation together and think about a future together. But when Dexter's career goes to his head, there is a three-year break in which they neither see nor hear from each other. At some point they meet again at a wedding and they realize that they have missed each other. After they finally get together and get married, Emma dies in a traffic accident on July 15, 2004. The novel ends on July 15, 2007, when Dexter visits Edinburgh with his daughter Jasmine and his new girlfriend Maddy and with a flashback to Emma and Dexter's first day, which ends with a deep kiss and is the actual starting point of the story.
style
During the twenty years of this book, only July 15th is described, not the time in between. What happens in the intervals between these days is conveyed only through people's thoughts and conversations. On the days of July 15th, the author changes perspective between the main characters Emma and Dexter.
Reviews
- Britta Jansen from the Berlin literary criticism writes, among other things, that the author made a “funny, entertaining and melancholy novel.” Two in one day is much more than an amusing romantic comedy about an unequal couple. It's a bitterly sweet book about life as a series of missed opportunities ...
- Marianne Wellershoff writes at Spiegel Online : “Two in one day thoughtfully combines the political with the private: how, for example, the importance of class membership dwindles over the years, how media celebrities define a new upper class and that growing up also means breaking free from clichéd ideas that one has of oneself. "
- Tony Parsons: "One of the best love stories every reader will fall in love with - and every writer will wish they wrote them themselves."
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.berlinerliteraturkritik.de/detailseite/artikel/eine-reihe-verpasster-chancen.html
- ^ Marianne Wellershoff: Reviews: "Two in one day". In: Spiegel Online . October 13, 2009, accessed June 10, 2018 .