Product Description

On the anniversary of a life-shattering event, George Webb, a former policeman turned private detective, revisits the catastrophes of his past and reaffirms the extraordinary direction of his future. Two years before, an assignment to follow a strayed husband and his mistress appeared simple enough, but this routine job left George a transformed man.

Suspenseful, moving, and hailed by critics as a detective story unlike any other, The Light of Day is a gripping tale of murder and redemption, as well as a bold exploration of love and self-discovery. This powerful novel signals yet another groundbreaking achievement from Graham Swift, the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Last Orders.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #711670 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-10
• Released on: 2004-08-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
?Leave it to one of the great modern story-tellers to pen a mystery where the crime is the least important element?Swift fashions the detective archetype into a workshop for a discussion of human identity.? -- Winnipeg Free Press

?Graham swift is a writer?s writer. He believes deeply in the transformative power of his art, which he plainly relishes. His books are exhilarating and daring, but not daredevil. He likes the bizarre and the improbable. He likes calamity?Swift excels at suspense, and The Light of Day, fated and claustrophobic, reads as if it were written by a British Ross MacDonald?The bleak helplessness of the protagonists is comfortless and disturbing, their love unredemptive and burdensome. This effect is brilliantly drawn.? -- (Ottawa) Citizen?s Weekly

?The Light of Day? possesses a ? stark and exacting structure. ? [A] classic noir plot. ? [C]alls to mind all sorts of correspondingly gritty love stories, from Hammett and Chandler to Double Indemnity, but Swift is more concerned with plumbing the conventions of the form to explore the murky territories of a moral life: the choices and chances one has, the deals we make and the paybacks we take, the responsibility we have to care for one another. ? There are moments of understated metaphorical brilliance. ? The Light of Day is a tough-guy novel with its heart buried in the twilight. ? [M]ysterious and sometimes seductive. ?? -- The Hamilton Spectator

? [Swift] is a wonderfully original writer and his new work lives up to his reputation as one of England?s finest living novelists?an intriguing, even mystifying story of the power of passion, murder and redemption? -- Toronto Sun

??an intriguing story of the power of passion, murder and redemption.? -- Calgary Sun

?The novel feels both fastidiously and feverishly shaped. George?s path through the day is mapped with such precision that we could trail him?. Though written in short, declarative sentences, there?s a musicality to Swift?s language?. intelligent, hypnotic?? -- The Globe & Mail

??comparison with The End of the Affair makes the other Graham look hysterical beside Swift's absolute evenness of execution?In this case, though, low key doesn't mean low risk. In its chosen sober manner, The Light of Day offers a master class in narrative.? -- The Guardian (UK)

?The story draws the reader on like the best whodunit -- or, whydunnit. Yet it is also a profoundly artful, beautifully weighted, resonant and humane literary novel. The geographical scope of its action may be no wider than the distance from Wimbledon to Chislehurst, but it reaches out towards Croatia, Magenta, Solferino, Sedan. The timescale may be no longer than a day, but it reaches back -- and forward -- for years.? -- Telegraph (UK)

?In The Light of Day, Booker Prize-winner Graham Swift writes in a style so deceptively simple that its emotional punch takes your breath away.? -- In Style

?It?s a beautifully constructed book, which flows, musically, around its central themes. Ideas circulate and resurface like refrains, the pace is gentle but brilliantly sustained, its association of ideas intricate but achieved with a magically delicate touch. It?s almost short-story like, so concentrated is the form, and, as a novel, deserves to be inhaled, greedily, in a single sitting, all the better to appreciate the complex patterning of its structure.? -- The Independent (UK)

?Swift has the ability to cast a spell over a story, magically illuminating the small details of human interaction and the outside world.? -- Sunday Express (UK)

"A brilliantly constructed novel: rarely has suspense been better sustained." -- The Independent Magazine

"Indisputably one of our finest novelists. This is a book so shot through with pent-up emotion that it practically trembles in your hands." -- Arena

"Swift is a virtuoso of narrative ventriloquism; he inhabits his characters through their voices. Ideas create little rhymes with each other (and) Swift manages this patterning of motifs with exquisite economy." -- New York Times Book Review

"Not only the work of a novelist at the peak of his powers, but also his most engaging work to date." -- HQ Magazine (Australia)

"A vision of the human that is almost religious in its capacity to forgive, building slowly but inexorably towards one final moment of weightlessness, as moving as any other Swift has written." -- The Age (Australia)

Praise for Last Orders:
?Graham Swift is a purely wonderful writer, and Last Orders, full of gravity and affection and stylistic brilliance, proves it precisely.? -- Richard Ford

?An amazing novel . . . A truly virtuoso performance . . . A metaphor of the journey we all take.? -- Ann Beattie

?This is Graham Swift?s finest work to date: beautifully written, gentle, funny, truthful, touching and profound.? -- Salman Rushdie

?A profound, intricately stratified novel full of life, love lost and love enduring.? -- The Globe and Mail

?Resonant, distinct, irresistible . . . both convincing and extraordinarily intimate.? -- Washington Post Book World


From the Hardcover edition. -- Review

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

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.?


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

"To love is to be ready to lose, it's not to have, to keep."
Initially resembling an old-fashioned, hard-boiled detective story, this novel by Graham Swift becomes, as the perspective widens, an investigation of love, man's need for love, and the sacrifices we are all willing to make for love. Private detective George Webb allows the reader to "tag along" during one day of his life in 1997, talking to his readers about aspects of his life as they impinge randomly on his consciousness. Description is not a big part of George's life, and it takes the reader some time to understand all his references in this lengthy interior monologue. We don't know, at first, why Nov. 20 is a significant date to him or where he goes every other Thursday, nor do we know about his personal relationships with the women introduced at the beginning, or the reason he's buying flowers, or why he's had a woman's handbag in his possession for two years.

As George's recollections, memories, and observations expand, however, we gradually come to know him and his past, including his relationship with his father, his own broken marriage and the circumstances surrounding it, his alienated daughter, his womanizing, the scandal which has resulted in his leaving the police force, and his decision to specialize in "matrimonial work." We learn, too, that George's client, Mrs. Nash, is now in jail, the reasons for this unfolding even more gradually, as we come to know her, her husband Bob, and the privileged life they've led. Always, however, our opinions of these characters and their relationships are colored by George's point of view, and we, as objective observers, learn as much about them from what George does not say as we do by what he does say.

All of George's memories are concerned with the vulnerability of people who are in love, as Swift raises questions about whether we choose the people we love, or whether we are chosen by them. Does love just happen? What makes it last? What happens to lovers who are "unchosen"? And can we love too much? Although a mystery story is not usually the framework for such a serious, philosophical analysis of love in all its permutations, Swift manages to make this work through his beautifully wrought character study of George, buffeted every which way by the loves in his life. In the lean, unemphatic prose style he first employed in Last Orders, Graham Swift presents a sensitive investigation of love with all its mysteries and ineffable sadness. Mary Whipple

Better than these guys let on
This book is about style and the journey. It is about rehashing the past. It's about how we dwell on little things that done differently would have had huge impacts on our lives. It is not a mystery. It is not "hard boiled". It is obviously not what a number of reviewers were looking for when then started it. That doesn't mean it's not good. It just means they haven't separated the two.

It's true that the narrator seemingly falls for this woman without reason or explanation to the reader. One critic said this was hard to believe, that without enough this depth and explanation the whole premise to the story was flawed. But then isn't that exactly what guys do. Suddenly they are mad about someone for absolutely no reason. Just the right time or mood when they meet a woman, or a unexpected comment or smile. It's that easy.

The book is maybe a little long but it does feel like you've rehashed the incident as if it were your own. This is exactly what happens when people go down a road that makes them miserable but one that they feel stuck in. They spend ridiculous amounts of time going over and over the situation, with slightly different tangents each time.

Don't expect a plain Jane detective novel. Don't assume you know George because of what you read about him on the flyleaf and you may enjoy how the book says what it does.

Two adjectives: trite and pretentious
This is how the book is written. The whole thing. Like this. Like this makes it deep. A story worthy of maybe twenty-five pages, parceled our in over three hundred. Little snippets. As if that makes the trite tale deep. Shallow. A shallow story, stupid in fact. So this trite tale blown up like this. Pretension. So the critics can claim he is like James Joyce. Wow. Really? Critics who can barely read with comprehension. Using big words they don't really understand, like nonlinear. For dribbling out the tale in little segments placed here and there in time. Told like this. Prose suitable for a dull forth grader. But isn't that what are critics are for? To make semiliterate readers think they are reading deep, difficult stuff? Want to read something like Joyce, read Portrait of the Artist or Ullyses. Skip this thing.