One Day

On July 15, 1988, Edinburgh University graduates Emma and Dexter meet on their graduation night, spend a brief time together, and then go their separate ways. Over the next twenty years, the story advances on that same date each year: Emma wants to do something meaningful, writing plays and novels, yet spends years waiting tables in restaurants she dislikes; Dexter, from a wealthy family and handsome, travels the world, becomes a television presenter, and slides steadily downward through alcohol, fame and vanity. The two become each other's most trusted friends, yet always miss each other just as they are about to draw close: Emma once angrily cuts off contact after being cold-shouldered, while Dexter only realizes where his heart lies just before his wedding. Years later they reunite at a friend's wedding, confess their feelings in Paris, and finally come together—only for fate to turn sharply just as happiness takes hold. Taking the same day as its cross-section, the novel strings together twenty years of love, disappointment, career ups and downs and changing times, writing about love at the wrong time and about how people are worn by the years into someone else. Its prose carries a dull ache beneath the humor; it was named a Book of the Year by The Guardian and has been adapted for screen twice.