What do you think?
Rate this book
Tomorrow
In his first novel since The Light of Day , the Booker Prize–winning author gives us a luminous tale about the closest of human bonds.
On a midsummer’s night Paula Hook lies awake; Mike, her husband of twenty-five years, asleep beside her; her teenage twins, Nick and Kate, sleeping in nearby rooms. The next day, she knows, will redefine all of their lives. A revelation lies in store. Her children’s future lies before them. The house holds the family’s history and fate.
Recalling the years before and after her children were born, Paula begins a story that is both a glowing celebration of love possessed and a moving acknowledgment of the fear of loss, of the fragilities, illusions, and secrets on which even our most intimate sense of who we are can rest. As day draws nearer, Paula’s intensely personal thoughts touch on all our tomorrows.
Brilliantly distilling half a century into one suspenseful night, as tender in its tone as it is deep in its soundings, Tomorrow is an eloquent exploration of couples, parenthood, and selfhood, and a unique meditation on the mystery of happiness.
On a midsummer’s night Paula Hook lies awake; Mike, her husband of twenty-five years, asleep beside her; her teenage twins, Nick and Kate, sleeping in nearby rooms. The next day, she knows, will redefine all of their lives. A revelation lies in store. Her children’s future lies before them. The house holds the family’s history and fate.
Recalling the years before and after her children were born, Paula begins a story that is both a glowing celebration of love possessed and a moving acknowledgment of the fear of loss, of the fragilities, illusions, and secrets on which even our most intimate sense of who we are can rest. As day draws nearer, Paula’s intensely personal thoughts touch on all our tomorrows.
Brilliantly distilling half a century into one suspenseful night, as tender in its tone as it is deep in its soundings, Tomorrow is an eloquent exploration of couples, parenthood, and selfhood, and a unique meditation on the mystery of happiness.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2007
31 people are currently reading
554 people want to read
About the author
Graham Swift
62 books693 followersGraham Colin Swift is a British writer. Born in London, UK, he was educated at Dulwich College, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 272 reviews
August 26, 2010
Ugh. Let me just count the ways that I loathed this book:
1. The stupid author baited me, and then grossly disappointed. Its one thing to build up the reader's anticipation when there is a legitimate payoff, but to keep reminding us "There's something big coming..." "Something earth-shattering is going to be revealed any time now..." and keep on like that for three-quarters of the book, it darn well better be earth-shattering, or I'm going to be ticked. I was ticked.
2. I couldn't believe the author was really a Booker prize winner. Really? The book that won must have been a million times better than this.
3. The premise of the book was so utterly unbelievable. It is ostensibly a letter written by a mother to her children while they sleep on the eve of "the day" when SOMETHING will be revealed to them that will change their lives completely. Okay, accepting that premise, there is no earthly way the mom could write this entire "letter" (aka, book) in the four hours between 2 AM and dawn she claims to be spending on it. Even if you were reading the book aloud, it would take more than four hours, let alone writing it. Every 100 pages or so the author would even bother to mention the time, unaware, apparently, that the reader can do the math and that in the fifteen minutes since the mom last mentioned what time it was, we've been reading for a couple of hours. What?
4. Another unrealistic aspect of the premise is that the mom is telling her teenage kids the entire history of her relationship with their father, her husband. But it SOOO does not read that way. It reads like a modern PG-13 novel with plenty of little sex scenes and details thrown in to appease the salacious-minded reader. I don't care how open and honest you were trying to be with your kids, you would use a lot more euphamisms for the stuff they really needed to know, and definitely not tell them a TON of stuff that was in this book because the whole time they'd be covering their eyes and saying, "Eww! I don't want to know that!" I was grossed out, and they weren't even my parents.
5. I felt like the author maybe started this book as a writing exercise to see if he could tell the whole story of a family's relationship just as a letter written in one night. There are all these bits where the mom is commenting on her kids' personalities (in a letter to them), but it feels like pure exposition. It didn't feel real at all, and if it was an experiment on the author's part, it failed.
6. Hopefully by now I've convinced you that a bikini wax would be a more pleasant use of your time than reading this book. If not, and you're still debating picking it up, please be warned that I am now going to ruin the "big surprise." If, however, you're already determined to stay away from this forehead-slapping mess, then this should give you some reassurance: Throughout the book (even after the "secret" is revealed) the mom says over and over again (oh yeah, that's another complaint. This book was horrendously repetitious) that the kids could basically react any way to the news they're about to receive and their parents wouldn't blame them. She likens it to a bomb about to go off that will either immediately shatter the happiness the family has cultivated for years, or else remain ticking ominously in the background as the family carries on in a strained attempt at normalcy. So, what information could be so terrible? Oh, that the kids were conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. Their dad isn't their biological father. I actually kept reading after the "Your dad isn't your dad" bit, because I was expecting something more mind-blowing like, "Your Uncle Charlie is your REAL father!" Or something like that. But, nope. Just a sperm donor. Honestly, if I were in those kids' shoes, I would have a hard time caring. I mean, what does this change for them, other than some possible ramifications regarding genetic diseases? Nothing. It's not like sperm-donor-dad is going to swoop in from the wings at this point and offer to be part of their lives. Their dad is still the only dad they've ever had and the only dad they ever will have, so how does it matter how they were biologically conceived? The whole premise was so ridiculous that I couldn't believe the author actually expected us to swallow this.
7. The letter ends with the mom reminding the kids about a time when they nearly drowned at the beach and their dad saved them. It was clearly meant as proof of his fatherly love (or something like that), but it had the feeling of a Lifetime movie plot, in addition to being a poor and half-hearted ending to the book.
So, all in all, I strongly disliked this book, and while I've enjoyed venting a bit on the author (stupid, stupid author), I'm more mad at myself for having kept reading. Totally a waste of time.
1. The stupid author baited me, and then grossly disappointed. Its one thing to build up the reader's anticipation when there is a legitimate payoff, but to keep reminding us "There's something big coming..." "Something earth-shattering is going to be revealed any time now..." and keep on like that for three-quarters of the book, it darn well better be earth-shattering, or I'm going to be ticked. I was ticked.
2. I couldn't believe the author was really a Booker prize winner. Really? The book that won must have been a million times better than this.
3. The premise of the book was so utterly unbelievable. It is ostensibly a letter written by a mother to her children while they sleep on the eve of "the day" when SOMETHING will be revealed to them that will change their lives completely. Okay, accepting that premise, there is no earthly way the mom could write this entire "letter" (aka, book) in the four hours between 2 AM and dawn she claims to be spending on it. Even if you were reading the book aloud, it would take more than four hours, let alone writing it. Every 100 pages or so the author would even bother to mention the time, unaware, apparently, that the reader can do the math and that in the fifteen minutes since the mom last mentioned what time it was, we've been reading for a couple of hours. What?
4. Another unrealistic aspect of the premise is that the mom is telling her teenage kids the entire history of her relationship with their father, her husband. But it SOOO does not read that way. It reads like a modern PG-13 novel with plenty of little sex scenes and details thrown in to appease the salacious-minded reader. I don't care how open and honest you were trying to be with your kids, you would use a lot more euphamisms for the stuff they really needed to know, and definitely not tell them a TON of stuff that was in this book because the whole time they'd be covering their eyes and saying, "Eww! I don't want to know that!" I was grossed out, and they weren't even my parents.
5. I felt like the author maybe started this book as a writing exercise to see if he could tell the whole story of a family's relationship just as a letter written in one night. There are all these bits where the mom is commenting on her kids' personalities (in a letter to them), but it feels like pure exposition. It didn't feel real at all, and if it was an experiment on the author's part, it failed.
6. Hopefully by now I've convinced you that a bikini wax would be a more pleasant use of your time than reading this book. If not, and you're still debating picking it up, please be warned that I am now going to ruin the "big surprise." If, however, you're already determined to stay away from this forehead-slapping mess, then this should give you some reassurance: Throughout the book (even after the "secret" is revealed) the mom says over and over again (oh yeah, that's another complaint. This book was horrendously repetitious) that the kids could basically react any way to the news they're about to receive and their parents wouldn't blame them. She likens it to a bomb about to go off that will either immediately shatter the happiness the family has cultivated for years, or else remain ticking ominously in the background as the family carries on in a strained attempt at normalcy. So, what information could be so terrible? Oh, that the kids were conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. Their dad isn't their biological father. I actually kept reading after the "Your dad isn't your dad" bit, because I was expecting something more mind-blowing like, "Your Uncle Charlie is your REAL father!" Or something like that. But, nope. Just a sperm donor. Honestly, if I were in those kids' shoes, I would have a hard time caring. I mean, what does this change for them, other than some possible ramifications regarding genetic diseases? Nothing. It's not like sperm-donor-dad is going to swoop in from the wings at this point and offer to be part of their lives. Their dad is still the only dad they've ever had and the only dad they ever will have, so how does it matter how they were biologically conceived? The whole premise was so ridiculous that I couldn't believe the author actually expected us to swallow this.
7. The letter ends with the mom reminding the kids about a time when they nearly drowned at the beach and their dad saved them. It was clearly meant as proof of his fatherly love (or something like that), but it had the feeling of a Lifetime movie plot, in addition to being a poor and half-hearted ending to the book.
So, all in all, I strongly disliked this book, and while I've enjoyed venting a bit on the author (stupid, stupid author), I'm more mad at myself for having kept reading. Totally a waste of time.
August 15, 2021
I am an admirer of Graham Swift, but nobody's perfect. Here, his sentence-by-sentence skills are still very much present, but it adds up to nothing. The project is doomed by the clever structure he dreamed up for telling the story.
You know those shaggy dog jokes where it takes ten minutes to tell the joke, and at the end there's a punchline so dumb that everybody laughs that they allowed their time to be wasted like this? Imagine wasting eight hours reading this, just to reach a similarly unstunning conclusion. I would like my time back.
At some point, I'm guessing one or two editors tried to talk him out of this. Well, everybody can be forgiven one mistake.
You know those shaggy dog jokes where it takes ten minutes to tell the joke, and at the end there's a punchline so dumb that everybody laughs that they allowed their time to be wasted like this? Imagine wasting eight hours reading this, just to reach a similarly unstunning conclusion. I would like my time back.
At some point, I'm guessing one or two editors tried to talk him out of this. Well, everybody can be forgiven one mistake.
November 4, 2007
I actually had to create the bookshelf "quit" for this book, because I very rarely legitimately quit reading a book once begun. But I did, and I can't front like I really did turn all those endless pages. Also, having read it would say something about me that I don't want said, because (and here it comes) the whole crappy thing is blahbittyblah filler leading up to a "big secret" that will be revealed... when? WHEN? When I looked at the page number for the 40th time on page 54 and decided that I couldn't possibly care enough about the revelation to keep on until it actually. fucking. happened. so i found this http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedr... and got all the (unutterably lame) secret with none of the ineffable boredom.
October 1, 2007
Expands upon the idea of what/when to tell kids that they are from invitro fertilization AND artificial insemination.
Problem is, i just kept wondering through most of the book, WHEN is this narrator going to get around to it... i just kept thinking : GET AROUND TO IT ALREADY!!! (most of the book she just "alludes" to the fact hey ahve somthing big to tell the kids tomorrow...)
maybe i just have no patience right about now, but even though it was an interesting idea, this book kindof dragged for me. At one point with only about 30 pages to go i actually just threw it down and exclaimed "I'm not even FINISHING this book!"
of course my husband looked at me like I was mad and I felt stupid because after all, who did i think i was "exclaiming" to, anyway...
Sorry if I wrecked the book by divulging the ending.... you get the idea pretty quick into it anyway.
Actually, my recommendation is just dont bother with it...
Problem is, i just kept wondering through most of the book, WHEN is this narrator going to get around to it... i just kept thinking : GET AROUND TO IT ALREADY!!! (most of the book she just "alludes" to the fact hey ahve somthing big to tell the kids tomorrow...)
maybe i just have no patience right about now, but even though it was an interesting idea, this book kindof dragged for me. At one point with only about 30 pages to go i actually just threw it down and exclaimed "I'm not even FINISHING this book!"
of course my husband looked at me like I was mad and I felt stupid because after all, who did i think i was "exclaiming" to, anyway...
Sorry if I wrecked the book by divulging the ending.... you get the idea pretty quick into it anyway.
Actually, my recommendation is just dont bother with it...
August 29, 2012
Yuck! Yuck!!! Such a disgusting book with a truly awful woman at its center. She didn't have any redeeming qualities at all. I held on till the very end hoping she'd realize what a disgusting person she was and she would please go kill herself - but no. She doesn't. Yuck!
Within the first twenty pages I was already feeling a relief on behalf of the kids that she wasn't the one telling them the awful secret. The archness of her manner of speaking (thinking) was overbearing. You know, that secret, the one you'll know tomorrow. Now hold on while I tell you in great detail how your grandfather (one you've never seen) porked three females in rapid succession. And then coyly, "you think we're old and we come from an ancient time, but at your age I'd already slept with ten men and I know you're still virgins. A mother can tell such things." What a vapid bitch. And what a silly secret. They're the products of Artificial Insemination. How shocking! But don't worry kids, it's not for the lack of trying. Here, let me give you a blow by blow account of when and where and how (the exact position) we had sex.
At one point, she says that if not for her poor cat Otis, the kids would never be born. I was fully expecting this thing to turn into some magical realist story, which maybe would've saved the thing. But no. The only significance of the cat is that it introduces her to its vet with whom she does some "prior experimentation". She apparently wants to figure out what it is to have someone else's semen in her womb. So, she sleeps with her cat's vet. It is, children, purely an experiment. Not kidding. It's in the book. The funny part though is that she says they were fully protected (with condoms and all). So much for the mingling of sperm and egg. She comes out of this experiment fully confident that she could go through with the AI. Unfortunately for her, the actual procedure has no dim, sexy lighting and romantic music in the background. Again, that's in the book. Her vet moves away, probably because he's scared the husband will find out. She's happy because he has fulfilled his "non-veterinary purposes". Her cat dies because the new vet is useless, but she's perfectly fine because the cat fulfilled its purpose too. It made me feel that the only reason she hangs on to her husband is probably because he didn't fulfill his purpose due to his sperm count being low. Lucky him.
After she drops the "bombshell" on the kids (all in her head), she keeps saying real grandfather in reference to her father and that she is their "real" parent. She's the one having trouble believing that her husband isn't the kids' father no matter what he does. Throughout the night she's scared that her kids won't accept her husband anymore - that suddenly he'll turn into a stranger. Really, if they even figured out what was going on in your head Mum, they'd not be crying about their father not being their real father. They would be crying that you were their real mother.
How did this shit get published? Did the publishers even read what they got? Or did they say, 'oh Booker Prize winner, it doesn't matter what he writes'? I'm glad it has such a low rating, it deserves even worse. This is one of the worst books I've ever read and I've read Christopher Paolini.
Within the first twenty pages I was already feeling a relief on behalf of the kids that she wasn't the one telling them the awful secret. The archness of her manner of speaking (thinking) was overbearing. You know, that secret, the one you'll know tomorrow. Now hold on while I tell you in great detail how your grandfather (one you've never seen) porked three females in rapid succession. And then coyly, "you think we're old and we come from an ancient time, but at your age I'd already slept with ten men and I know you're still virgins. A mother can tell such things." What a vapid bitch. And what a silly secret. They're the products of Artificial Insemination. How shocking! But don't worry kids, it's not for the lack of trying. Here, let me give you a blow by blow account of when and where and how (the exact position) we had sex.
At one point, she says that if not for her poor cat Otis, the kids would never be born. I was fully expecting this thing to turn into some magical realist story, which maybe would've saved the thing. But no. The only significance of the cat is that it introduces her to its vet with whom she does some "prior experimentation". She apparently wants to figure out what it is to have someone else's semen in her womb. So, she sleeps with her cat's vet. It is, children, purely an experiment. Not kidding. It's in the book. The funny part though is that she says they were fully protected (with condoms and all). So much for the mingling of sperm and egg. She comes out of this experiment fully confident that she could go through with the AI. Unfortunately for her, the actual procedure has no dim, sexy lighting and romantic music in the background. Again, that's in the book. Her vet moves away, probably because he's scared the husband will find out. She's happy because he has fulfilled his "non-veterinary purposes". Her cat dies because the new vet is useless, but she's perfectly fine because the cat fulfilled its purpose too. It made me feel that the only reason she hangs on to her husband is probably because he didn't fulfill his purpose due to his sperm count being low. Lucky him.
After she drops the "bombshell" on the kids (all in her head), she keeps saying real grandfather in reference to her father and that she is their "real" parent. She's the one having trouble believing that her husband isn't the kids' father no matter what he does. Throughout the night she's scared that her kids won't accept her husband anymore - that suddenly he'll turn into a stranger. Really, if they even figured out what was going on in your head Mum, they'd not be crying about their father not being their real father. They would be crying that you were their real mother.
How did this shit get published? Did the publishers even read what they got? Or did they say, 'oh Booker Prize winner, it doesn't matter what he writes'? I'm glad it has such a low rating, it deserves even worse. This is one of the worst books I've ever read and I've read Christopher Paolini.
December 31, 2007
The title of this book is one word beginning with "T"--Tomorrow. I can think of another "T" word that would have been a more appropriate title--Tedious. The story is of a mother of 16 year old twins laying awake in bed thinking about the conversation that she and her husband will be having with their children tomorrow (hence the title) to tell them about a long-held secret. The entire book takes place during the night. We never actually see the narrator and her husband have the conversation. Instead we follow the mother's thoughts taking us through the story leading up to the secret, the secret itself and what she sees as the possible aftermath. In the process we get a lot of side story involving the parent's courtship, tales of the grandparents, a strangely pointless story about a cat (he was also a secret--also pointless) and WAY too much information about the parents sex lives. I am a Graham Swift fan. Waterland is one of my favorite books. This one was a true disappointment. Properly edited this story was a novella at best--and not a very interesting one at that. Swift needs to go into "Good Writers Gone Bad" rehab with Alice Sebold.
January 9, 2011
Paula, the mother of twins Nick and Kate, and wife of Mike, agonizes during the night and into the morning of the day after the twins' 16th birthday. She's worrying over the impact of a big announcement on the twins and on their family. It's fairly obvious from the first chapter what the momentous revelation is, and in 2010, it hardly comes as a surprise, and I can't imagine the personal and ethical dilemmas were any more novel when the book was published in 2007.
Maybe I responded the way teenagers do when their mothers go on, but I found Paula's monologue long-winded and cloying. My eyes may have even strayed ceiling-ward. Perhaps that's the skill of the writer channeling a mother, but it engenders exasperation instead of sympathy. There are touching moments but there's no characterisation which makes it hard to care for the people involved. Apart from the generic characters, there's also a problem with telling family stories in flashback, pushing them further away emotionally. Ultimately, Paula's story is unmoving and her rationalisations unconvincing - this was a novel that clearly would have worked better as an angsty short story.
Maybe I responded the way teenagers do when their mothers go on, but I found Paula's monologue long-winded and cloying. My eyes may have even strayed ceiling-ward. Perhaps that's the skill of the writer channeling a mother, but it engenders exasperation instead of sympathy. There are touching moments but there's no characterisation which makes it hard to care for the people involved. Apart from the generic characters, there's also a problem with telling family stories in flashback, pushing them further away emotionally. Ultimately, Paula's story is unmoving and her rationalisations unconvincing - this was a novel that clearly would have worked better as an angsty short story.
March 23, 2022
I think if I was GS’s editor, I’d review the way this book looks,15 years later and quietly take it out of circulation. It feels like a rough draft of something - trying to write in a maternal voice, testing out ideas of paternity, whether ties are biological or emotional.
There’s a lot of breathy patches where the mother narrating it dips into reflections about houses, money, being a prisoner of war, sex, wine and a missing cat. I don’t think I’ve quite done it justice, it really is much more tedious than I make it sound.
There’s a lot of breathy patches where the mother narrating it dips into reflections about houses, money, being a prisoner of war, sex, wine and a missing cat. I don’t think I’ve quite done it justice, it really is much more tedious than I make it sound.
April 1, 2017
*pout* I’m not having much luck with my fiction reading at the moment.
I am spoiled for choice with non-fiction: I have started Rebe Taylor’s Into the Heart of Tasmania: A Search for Human Antiquity but then Tony Kevin’s new book Return to Moscow came into the library – and I just took a little peek at it when the traffic lights were red and kept going when I got home. I’ve got an intriguing new bio called Lenin the Dictator: An Intimate Portrait and a beautiful National Library of Australia bio called Looking for Rose Paterson: How Family Bush Life Nurtured Banjo the Poet.
But my bedtime fiction reading has been no good at all. After the debacle of Sarah Dunant’s Transgressions (see my disappointed review) I tried Australian poet Libby Angel’s The Trapeze Act, expecting to like it after hearing about it on Radio National’s Books and Arts program, but no, I gave it 50 pages but just couldn’t muster the interest to keep going. Then I took up Ouyang Yu’s new novella Billy Sing – and I do like it, but relaxing bedtime reading it’s not. I need my wits about me to read Ouyang Yu. I really need something easy-to-read-but-interesting while I’m having trouble with my eyes, so I looked on the TBR for a tried and trusted author… and there was Graham Swift, author of books I loved: the Booker-winning Last Orders, (1996), Waterland, (1983) The Light of Day (2003), and more recently Mothering Sunday (2016) (see my review). What could go wrong?
I should have remembered my experience with Wish You Were Here (2011). That was a dud (see my review) but it failed to alert me to the possibility that worse might be in store. Words fail me when I try to explain how much I disliked Graham Swift’s Tomorrow: it is possibly the most exasperating book I’ve ever read.
It’s narrated by a mother lying awake at night, thinking about the secret about to be revealed to her twin children the following day. It is narrated in the incredibly annoying second person, as she addresses these hapless children, who have just turned sixteen. (This is how I know I bought this book sight unseen on the strength of Swift’s name (probably from a Readings’ catalogue, but I don’t blame them). If I had set eyes on these introductory words, I would never have spent my hard-earned money on it:
Are your teeth on edge already? Mine were, and (merely from typing it) still are, and now I don’t understand why I kept on going. A vague interest in what the earth-shattering secret might be, I suppose, (plus I was too warm and comfortable to get out of bed and choose another book). But before long I knew that this secret wasn’t something interesting, like their father having been a Soviet spy or that she was really the offspring of an escaped Romanov and that there was a fortune awaiting them in de-Sovietised Russia. No, clearly it was some commonplace domestic secret. Either the parents were splitting up, or that their parentage was not what they thought it was. Or both. Either way, she was overdramatising it.
To read the rest of my review, please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/04/01/t...
I am spoiled for choice with non-fiction: I have started Rebe Taylor’s Into the Heart of Tasmania: A Search for Human Antiquity but then Tony Kevin’s new book Return to Moscow came into the library – and I just took a little peek at it when the traffic lights were red and kept going when I got home. I’ve got an intriguing new bio called Lenin the Dictator: An Intimate Portrait and a beautiful National Library of Australia bio called Looking for Rose Paterson: How Family Bush Life Nurtured Banjo the Poet.
But my bedtime fiction reading has been no good at all. After the debacle of Sarah Dunant’s Transgressions (see my disappointed review) I tried Australian poet Libby Angel’s The Trapeze Act, expecting to like it after hearing about it on Radio National’s Books and Arts program, but no, I gave it 50 pages but just couldn’t muster the interest to keep going. Then I took up Ouyang Yu’s new novella Billy Sing – and I do like it, but relaxing bedtime reading it’s not. I need my wits about me to read Ouyang Yu. I really need something easy-to-read-but-interesting while I’m having trouble with my eyes, so I looked on the TBR for a tried and trusted author… and there was Graham Swift, author of books I loved: the Booker-winning Last Orders, (1996), Waterland, (1983) The Light of Day (2003), and more recently Mothering Sunday (2016) (see my review). What could go wrong?
I should have remembered my experience with Wish You Were Here (2011). That was a dud (see my review) but it failed to alert me to the possibility that worse might be in store. Words fail me when I try to explain how much I disliked Graham Swift’s Tomorrow: it is possibly the most exasperating book I’ve ever read.
It’s narrated by a mother lying awake at night, thinking about the secret about to be revealed to her twin children the following day. It is narrated in the incredibly annoying second person, as she addresses these hapless children, who have just turned sixteen. (This is how I know I bought this book sight unseen on the strength of Swift’s name (probably from a Readings’ catalogue, but I don’t blame them). If I had set eyes on these introductory words, I would never have spent my hard-earned money on it:
You’re asleep, my angels, I assume. So, to my amazement and relief, is your father, like a man finding it in him to sleep on the eve of his execution. He’ll need all he can muster tomorrow. I’m the only one awake on this night before the day that will change all our lives. Though it’s already that day: the little luminous hands on my alarm clock (which I haven’t set) show just gone one in the morning. And the nights are short. It’s almost midsummer, 1995. It’s a week past your sixteenth birthday. By a fluke that’s become something of an embarrassment and some people will say wasn’t a fluke at all, you were born in Gemini. I’m not an especially superstitious woman. I married a scientist. But one little thing I’ll do tomorrow – today, I mean, but for a little while still I can keep up an illusion – is cross my fingers. (p.1)
Are your teeth on edge already? Mine were, and (merely from typing it) still are, and now I don’t understand why I kept on going. A vague interest in what the earth-shattering secret might be, I suppose, (plus I was too warm and comfortable to get out of bed and choose another book). But before long I knew that this secret wasn’t something interesting, like their father having been a Soviet spy or that she was really the offspring of an escaped Romanov and that there was a fortune awaiting them in de-Sovietised Russia. No, clearly it was some commonplace domestic secret. Either the parents were splitting up, or that their parentage was not what they thought it was. Or both. Either way, she was overdramatising it.
To read the rest of my review, please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/04/01/t...
May 8, 2011
I didn't care for Tomorrow. I didn't dislike it because the entire novel is an interior monologue by a woman lying in bed. I wasn't put off by the premise of her interior address to her children, the twins Kate and Nick, who're to be told something tomorrow that'll change forever the way they look at themselves and their parents. The most serious shortcoming in the novel is the voice of Paula Hook, the mother. It's too self-conscious, too aware it's speaking a narration in someone's head. Her voice--and the narration we receive--is a performance and Swift fails to make it otherwise. The result is a woman speaking in false notes and forced articulation. Because there's an air of deliberately withheld mystery, as there is, in fact, all the novel's information arrives in ways that seem contrived. It's all clumsy and unimaginative. I've read a couple of very good novels by Swift, Waterland and Last Orders. But I'd been disappointed by his last, the noir-aspiring The Light of Day and should have been alerted. Here, with Tomorrow, I wondered if Swift was having delusions of grandeur. It's a novel of the night like the final chapters of Ulysses. The date of Paula's monologue is June 16th. As everyone knows, as Swift knew when he chose the date for Paula, that's the date of Molly Bloom's masterful soliloquy at the end of Ulysses and is one of the most famous dates in literature. Any reader will make the comparison. But Paula's no Molly and Swift's no Joyce. It's not that every novel has to attempt an art on a par with Joyce. There's room in the world for fiction of this particular caliber. The fault's not so much Swift's as mine for setting my own bar so high. I did the choosing and therefore left myself open to disappointment. Failing like this makes me want to look with a more critical eye at the books I've assigned myself to read. A gnarled, bookish bonsai, I'm tempted to sink deeper, tighter roots of judgement into the garden of books waiting to be plucked and read.
March 8, 2017
Paula lies awake besides her husband in the night before the 16th birthday of their twins, a boy and a girl. The next day the couple is going to make an announcement to their children. It takes some time before Graham Swift allows Paula's thoughts to reveal to the reader the content of this message to their children. Curiosity keeps you going as Paula's thoughts unfold this small happy family's background and history:we get to know her and her husband's own family with the respective grandfathers and grandmothers, scars and bruises, cats and dogs. The way they met, became a couple. The careers, the birth of the children.
But there is this thing they will reveal tomorrow to their children, a thing only the parents know and ok, maybe some outsiders too and maybe this grandmother has guessed some of it. A secret will be revealed that will change the twin's perception of their own lives. The shock that Santa Claus does not really exist, something like that but bigger.
Readers who like detailed, intelligent and subtle analysis of emotional and psychological dynamics in family life will love this novel. The relationship of the couple, the respective relationships with their children, the interaction with the grandparents, all is looked at from every possible angle. Because Paula lies awake worrying how tomorrow's news will affect this emotional construction that is her family.
The subtle, endlessly detailed and all encompassing emotional analysis of this mother of her own family was sometimes beyond me. Must be because I am male and blunt. But then again Swift is also male, but not blunt.
But there is this thing they will reveal tomorrow to their children, a thing only the parents know and ok, maybe some outsiders too and maybe this grandmother has guessed some of it. A secret will be revealed that will change the twin's perception of their own lives. The shock that Santa Claus does not really exist, something like that but bigger.
Readers who like detailed, intelligent and subtle analysis of emotional and psychological dynamics in family life will love this novel. The relationship of the couple, the respective relationships with their children, the interaction with the grandparents, all is looked at from every possible angle. Because Paula lies awake worrying how tomorrow's news will affect this emotional construction that is her family.
The subtle, endlessly detailed and all encompassing emotional analysis of this mother of her own family was sometimes beyond me. Must be because I am male and blunt. But then again Swift is also male, but not blunt.
November 21, 2009
I didn't like the narrator of Tomorrow, a mother musing at three a.m. about her family on the 'eve' of the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT to her sixteen year old twins (SPOILER ALERT) that they were products of (gasp) artificial insemination. She's not evil. And I spent quite some time trying to put my finger on what I didn't like about her. I think it's that she seems to be viewing her family, indeed her life, as figures in a dollhouse. I am the mommy. I work for an art firm. Here is the daddy. He used to study snails; now he owns a magazine. We had a cat. We have twins. One boy, one girl. They are my little shrimps. This is the story of how we had them. The narrator, if you will, is the product of the author's artificial insemination.
There were, however, two very poignant moments. One is when our narrator introduces the man who will become her husband to her father, a judge and oenophile, a vignette of particular significance to me at this moment of my life. The second is when she recalls herself as a child in some Shakespearean play, looking out in the audience, and seeing an empty seat next to her father's.
Anyhow, this is a very quick read, only $2 from a clearance shelf, and a welcome interlude during a more dense reading effort.
There were, however, two very poignant moments. One is when our narrator introduces the man who will become her husband to her father, a judge and oenophile, a vignette of particular significance to me at this moment of my life. The second is when she recalls herself as a child in some Shakespearean play, looking out in the audience, and seeing an empty seat next to her father's.
Anyhow, this is a very quick read, only $2 from a clearance shelf, and a welcome interlude during a more dense reading effort.
January 11, 2013
This was my introduction to this author, possibly through a book review clipped and thrown in a bedside table drawer. I found it to be lyrical and wise:
"We all have more than one creature inside of us perhaps. And there are some moments in our lives that make us ripe for metamorphosis".
The book is narrated by the thoughts of a woman/wife/mother who is lying in bed thinking about a conversation that will happen in their family the next morning. The children are twins and the parents feel that they are old enough to understand their unique family origins. Now I must confess that , the similar circumstances of my family and pending discussion were
what pulled me in after reading the dust jacked synopsis. Indeed, our family discussion as previously planned, took place while I was in the middle of this book.
But the writing, the characters, the relevant and graceful transitions from present to past would not let me put the book down. The questions and answers about family, love and bonding would keep any reader. The choice of the incident at the beach to illustrate what makes a family a family was brilliant.
I am eager to read more of Swift's work.
Just one question...what was the point of Alan Fraser?
"We all have more than one creature inside of us perhaps. And there are some moments in our lives that make us ripe for metamorphosis".
The book is narrated by the thoughts of a woman/wife/mother who is lying in bed thinking about a conversation that will happen in their family the next morning. The children are twins and the parents feel that they are old enough to understand their unique family origins. Now I must confess that , the similar circumstances of my family and pending discussion were
what pulled me in after reading the dust jacked synopsis. Indeed, our family discussion as previously planned, took place while I was in the middle of this book.
But the writing, the characters, the relevant and graceful transitions from present to past would not let me put the book down. The questions and answers about family, love and bonding would keep any reader. The choice of the incident at the beach to illustrate what makes a family a family was brilliant.
I am eager to read more of Swift's work.
Just one question...what was the point of Alan Fraser?
January 17, 2018
This was a huge disappointment. It takes the form of the interior monologue of Paula Hook, lying awake brooding over what her husband is going to tell their two children the following day. She makes it sound like the end of the world, but frankly it isn't -- I wouldn't say she's making a mountain out of a molehill, but she is certainly exaggerating the possible effects. The writing is leaden, and because we never actually meet the other characters, they don't come alive. I was completely underwhelmed. And this from the man who wrote the wonderful, expansive Waterland (which should have won the Booker) and Shuttlecock -- two of my favourite novels.
April 10, 2009
Eee gads. I can't believe after starting this book and stopping I forced myself to read the entire thing. Basically this book could have been a short story. It just went on and on. You wait nearly the entire book to find out the big secret, which isn't really that big of a deal, and the entire time read repeatedly the same exact thoughts from the mother page after page. The only satisfaction I have gotten from this book is that I finished it.
April 27, 2025
I'm in two minds about this one. The premise is basically a woman's monologue while she stays awake all night next to her husband, imagining the conversation that will occur the following day with their twin children, that will irrevocably change all their lives.
The first half is quite enjoyable, their early lives in the sixties, how they got together, and their early married life; also the background of their own parents and how they too, lived.
The second half loses something when the mother indulges too much in silly speculations and imaginings. Perhaps understandable in her situation, but it makes for annoying reading.
Some may also read this story thinking this couple that had a solid loving marriage, and after a while, quite a lot of monetary success, doesn't really allow for the feeling of much sympathy or pity. Boo hoo you had one trouble to deal with? However, the fact remains that this issue is something many parents go through, and those who have, or have it ahead of them, may find in this book some powerful support.
Ultimately, the writing is good, the characters interesting. For some readers, these are the main things.
The first half is quite enjoyable, their early lives in the sixties, how they got together, and their early married life; also the background of their own parents and how they too, lived.
The second half loses something when the mother indulges too much in silly speculations and imaginings. Perhaps understandable in her situation, but it makes for annoying reading.
Some may also read this story thinking this couple that had a solid loving marriage, and after a while, quite a lot of monetary success, doesn't really allow for the feeling of much sympathy or pity. Boo hoo you had one trouble to deal with? However, the fact remains that this issue is something many parents go through, and those who have, or have it ahead of them, may find in this book some powerful support.
Ultimately, the writing is good, the characters interesting. For some readers, these are the main things.
July 1, 2013
I adore Graham Swift's style of writing; I can honestly say I think I would read through the whole phonebook if it was written in his reminiscing, romantic, monologuing way. 'Tomorrow' was just the same - a delightfully nostalgic tale.
However, to be honest, I very much feel like this novel may aswell have been the phonebook. The subject matter was bizarre and seems to me to have been dealt with in an incredibly over-dramatic fashion, which is why I haven't given this book 5 stars.
*Spoiler alert*
'Tomorrow' is told as the first person interior monologue of a mother, Paulie, who is laying awake in bed on the night before her husband (asleep beside her) is going to tell their teenage children that they were conceived by sperm donation, so he is not their biological father. My problem is that this book was set in 1995, and written in 2007...not the 1980s when artificial insemination and other infertility treatments were relatively new and perhaps viewed as more extreme. Yes, of course the twins would be shocked and hurt that Mike (sleeping husband) is not their 'real' father, but is it really so earth-shattering in such circumstances? He had a low sperm count and they desperately wanted a child...it's not like the mother went out and got knocked up by someone else one evening.
Which brings me onto my main gripe: Paulie's constant emphasis on the fact that she doesn't really think of Mike as the children's father. I found it quite insulting and hard to stomach that this woman, supposedly so madly in love with her husband, pretty much completely dismisses her husband's claim to fatherhood, merely because biologically he is not the father of the twins. Even though she and Mike decided on sperm donation together, and he has been 'the father' since day one, before they were even born. She states repeatedly to the children: 'You are definitely mine' and variations on that, but makes it clear that she does not consider her husband or his family as truly related to the twins. At the same time as she encourages the twins not to cut him out of their lives or blame him, she makes it clear that she doesn't think that raising children for 16 years warrants the title of Dad, or Nan and Grandad. Mike is set to tell the children the truth on the morning after the book is set...what chance does he have of convincing them that he loves them exactly as if he had conceived them himself if his wife, the only person who knows the truth and who decided on the method of artificial insemination with him, does not believe it herself? Does not believe he is capable of being a true father to his children due to pure biology? What's that saying? - 'Anyone can be a father; it takes someone special to be a Daddy'...well, not to Paulie!
Also, the fact that the children are twins seems to have been added in as an afterthought, merely to emphasise the fact that they were born via artificial insemination (multiple births are more likely via this method). Throughout the novel, Paulie is primarily speaking to her daughter, Kate, with sparse mentions of her twin brother Nick. Nick seemed completely superfluous to the story, and I honestly believe Swift probably originally drafted this book with just the one child - a daughter, so the 'chat' was more woman-to-woman - and added the 'twin' as a nod towards the science of infertility treatment.
So anyway, this book is beautifully written, and well worth a read if you can suspend your disbelief and your knowledge that artificial insemination is actually quite common and not the shock revalation that Paulie and Mike seem to think it is.
However, to be honest, I very much feel like this novel may aswell have been the phonebook. The subject matter was bizarre and seems to me to have been dealt with in an incredibly over-dramatic fashion, which is why I haven't given this book 5 stars.
*Spoiler alert*
'Tomorrow' is told as the first person interior monologue of a mother, Paulie, who is laying awake in bed on the night before her husband (asleep beside her) is going to tell their teenage children that they were conceived by sperm donation, so he is not their biological father. My problem is that this book was set in 1995, and written in 2007...not the 1980s when artificial insemination and other infertility treatments were relatively new and perhaps viewed as more extreme. Yes, of course the twins would be shocked and hurt that Mike (sleeping husband) is not their 'real' father, but is it really so earth-shattering in such circumstances? He had a low sperm count and they desperately wanted a child...it's not like the mother went out and got knocked up by someone else one evening.
Which brings me onto my main gripe: Paulie's constant emphasis on the fact that she doesn't really think of Mike as the children's father. I found it quite insulting and hard to stomach that this woman, supposedly so madly in love with her husband, pretty much completely dismisses her husband's claim to fatherhood, merely because biologically he is not the father of the twins. Even though she and Mike decided on sperm donation together, and he has been 'the father' since day one, before they were even born. She states repeatedly to the children: 'You are definitely mine' and variations on that, but makes it clear that she does not consider her husband or his family as truly related to the twins. At the same time as she encourages the twins not to cut him out of their lives or blame him, she makes it clear that she doesn't think that raising children for 16 years warrants the title of Dad, or Nan and Grandad. Mike is set to tell the children the truth on the morning after the book is set...what chance does he have of convincing them that he loves them exactly as if he had conceived them himself if his wife, the only person who knows the truth and who decided on the method of artificial insemination with him, does not believe it herself? Does not believe he is capable of being a true father to his children due to pure biology? What's that saying? - 'Anyone can be a father; it takes someone special to be a Daddy'...well, not to Paulie!
Also, the fact that the children are twins seems to have been added in as an afterthought, merely to emphasise the fact that they were born via artificial insemination (multiple births are more likely via this method). Throughout the novel, Paulie is primarily speaking to her daughter, Kate, with sparse mentions of her twin brother Nick. Nick seemed completely superfluous to the story, and I honestly believe Swift probably originally drafted this book with just the one child - a daughter, so the 'chat' was more woman-to-woman - and added the 'twin' as a nod towards the science of infertility treatment.
So anyway, this book is beautifully written, and well worth a read if you can suspend your disbelief and your knowledge that artificial insemination is actually quite common and not the shock revalation that Paulie and Mike seem to think it is.
Want to read
February 2, 2022*****************************
*Waterland 4 stars
*Mothering Sunday 4 stars
*Here We Are 4 stars
*Last Orders 3 stars
*Ever After 3 stars
*The Light of Day TBR
*Out of This World TBR
*Shuttlecock TBR
*Wish You Were Here TBR
*The Sweet Shop Owner TBR
*Tomorrow TBR
*Waterland 4 stars
*Mothering Sunday 4 stars
*Here We Are 4 stars
*Last Orders 3 stars
*Ever After 3 stars
*The Light of Day TBR
*Out of This World TBR
*Shuttlecock TBR
*Wish You Were Here TBR
*The Sweet Shop Owner TBR
*Tomorrow TBR
October 2, 2009
I started this book with much excitement. Swift is a Booker prize winner and this book is described as ‘The work of a master craftsman’, ‘...Gripping’, and ‘A tour de force ................ An ingenuous piece of fiction.’
Well i say pfffffft to all that. I was so bored for so long that i finally gave up.
The story takes place in one evening in one woman’s head. She thinks about her life before her kids were conceived as she contemplates the big secret she and her husband are going to tell their twins in the morning – the tomorrow of the title.
I was interested in what the secret was. But not as interested as she seemed to be in making sure her kids knew she had sex. Well done to you, you had sex. Can we move on now maybe?
Apparently not.
Yaaawn.
Then when what the secret is, is revealed, do you think she stops? Not for a nano-second. Ever moronic detail, most of which seem beyond inane, of her life before the kids seems to have to be mentioned. I simply stopped caring and 2/3rds of the way into the book decided that my six month rule for life meant i had to stop reading this book...immediately!
The greatest crisis that family faces is not the great secret but that everyone may doe of boredom before the kids hear it.
Maybe i am missing the point. Swift is considered a worthy author – but my god, save me from tedium. I do not think that the voice was particularly well done; i certainly was not impressed with Swift’s skill at creating a female protagonist. She was one-dimensional and, can i say it again, boring!
Perhaps if there is a reader out there who loves Swift, I could be set straight in my opinion of this book. But for now – i am not even going to release it unless someone is desperate for it.
What a disappointment
Well i say pfffffft to all that. I was so bored for so long that i finally gave up.
The story takes place in one evening in one woman’s head. She thinks about her life before her kids were conceived as she contemplates the big secret she and her husband are going to tell their twins in the morning – the tomorrow of the title.
I was interested in what the secret was. But not as interested as she seemed to be in making sure her kids knew she had sex. Well done to you, you had sex. Can we move on now maybe?
Apparently not.
Yaaawn.
Then when what the secret is, is revealed, do you think she stops? Not for a nano-second. Ever moronic detail, most of which seem beyond inane, of her life before the kids seems to have to be mentioned. I simply stopped caring and 2/3rds of the way into the book decided that my six month rule for life meant i had to stop reading this book...immediately!
The greatest crisis that family faces is not the great secret but that everyone may doe of boredom before the kids hear it.
Maybe i am missing the point. Swift is considered a worthy author – but my god, save me from tedium. I do not think that the voice was particularly well done; i certainly was not impressed with Swift’s skill at creating a female protagonist. She was one-dimensional and, can i say it again, boring!
Perhaps if there is a reader out there who loves Swift, I could be set straight in my opinion of this book. But for now – i am not even going to release it unless someone is desperate for it.
What a disappointment
June 2, 2009
I am a huge fan of Swift's and firmly believe he has written one of the best novels of the last century (Waterland), but this novel falls short. The premise of the novel is that Paula Cambell Hook (49) is unable to sleep because tomorrow she and her husband will share a secret with their children (16 y.o. twins) that will supposedly change their world irrevocably. This establishes the dramatic tension as the narrator seems to be speaking to her children telling the story of her life with her husband through flashbacks.
Swift keeps the reader guessing for 2/3 of the novel. The "mystery" may appeal to some but I found it a literary trick unworthy of such great writing. The real meat of this novel (so to speak) is in the examination of what the secret actually means to the family and what defines a family. I feel this would have been a far better novel if Swift had let us in on the secret in the first few pages and spent the rest of the novel with Paula examining the implications of the secret, which should have been easy given that she has had sixteen years to mull it over.
In addition, I am not sure that Swift does the best job of writing as a woman. I tried to ask myself it I picked up this novel unaware of the author would I be able to tell it was written by a man. I think the answer would have to be "Yes".
Swift keeps the reader guessing for 2/3 of the novel. The "mystery" may appeal to some but I found it a literary trick unworthy of such great writing. The real meat of this novel (so to speak) is in the examination of what the secret actually means to the family and what defines a family. I feel this would have been a far better novel if Swift had let us in on the secret in the first few pages and spent the rest of the novel with Paula examining the implications of the secret, which should have been easy given that she has had sixteen years to mull it over.
In addition, I am not sure that Swift does the best job of writing as a woman. I tried to ask myself it I picked up this novel unaware of the author would I be able to tell it was written by a man. I think the answer would have to be "Yes".
April 1, 2010
I sure hate to give up in the middle of a book. Hate that so much I continued well past the middle. But I wish I had quit sooner because reading most of these reviews it seems like the book is not going to redeem itself. The entire book is about one night, where a wife/mother lays awake talking to herself, her kids (rehearsing in her mind for the next day) and the reader about what she and her husband are going to tell the kids "tomorrow", on their 16th birthday. It turns out that the big secret is the dad isn't the biological father. And this is supposedly going to have a huge, potentially life-changing impact on the kids. And this woman goes on and on ad nauseum about the minutia of their lives before kids. The thing that kills me is WHO CARES??? Not me. And not a pair of 16 year olds, I'm guessing...... It's almost tempting to read to the end to see if this story falls as flat on it's intended audience (the kids) as it did on me. It's interesting that it is written by a man because he sure has the dramatic self-centered persona of a very young woman down pat. That was the other thing that bugs me. A mother of 16 year old twins should no longer be believing that her every waking thought in the whole history of her life is of interest to other people. ....blah.... BTW does anyone else miss spellcheck on goodreads? Sorry about the typos!
March 18, 2009
Interesting premise for this book: a woman lies awake at night, mulling over some huge and life changing news that she and her husband will be sharing with their twin teenagers the following the day. The entire book is made up of her thoughts over this night. She suggests repeatedly that this news is big and scary enough that she fears her children won't want to know her anymore.
The only problem is that the news does not live up to a book-full of fearsome thoughts (what could?) and the ending feels like a trick because the author (who is otherwise a fine writer) tricked you into reading this whole book at a time when you don't have much time to read anymore and the things you DO read have been carefully considered. Grrr......
If you are curious about the ending, the first Goodreads review I came across gives it away in the first sentence, for some reason.
The only problem is that the news does not live up to a book-full of fearsome thoughts (what could?) and the ending feels like a trick because the author (who is otherwise a fine writer) tricked you into reading this whole book at a time when you don't have much time to read anymore and the things you DO read have been carefully considered. Grrr......
If you are curious about the ending, the first Goodreads review I came across gives it away in the first sentence, for some reason.
Read
January 10, 2009i am a fan of graham swift, i have read all of his other books and have really enjoyed them, but this one was not good. this book started out okay and i thought there would be so much more to it than there actually was. i think it is so overdramatic for no reason and i started to really dislike the narrator, the mom, about halfway way through and then just wanted it over.
February 12, 2010
When I picked this book up on a Summer I actually found the idea very interesting and was sure to love it.
However, like my summer this book proved to be slow, TOO slow. I couldn't finish it and it's definitely on my worst books list. Regardless, I'd still like to finish it one day when I'm ready to die of boredom.
However, like my summer this book proved to be slow, TOO slow. I couldn't finish it and it's definitely on my worst books list. Regardless, I'd still like to finish it one day when I'm ready to die of boredom.
May 16, 2009
This was a very boring book with a very shallow plot. At the end my opinion was "so what?"
February 22, 2021
A mother's telling of a family secret to 16 year old twins. It dragged on a bit.
March 17, 2018
With ‘Tomorrow’ I’ve finally read all of Graham Swift’s books, getting on for 20 years after I read my first one.
This one was first published in 2007 but has been out of print for a while and only in the last few a weeks has been republished. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I think it’s up there in the top four of the things he’s written.
The story - written in second person narrative - concerns a couple lying in bed in the early hours of the morning. The husband is asleep, the wife is awake & our narrator. In a few hours time they’ll have something very important to tell their children (twins - a girl & boy) who have recently turned 16.
For about the first two thirds of the novel it’s unclear what it is they will will be telling their kids (although in fairness it’s relatively easy to guess) but the book isn’t so much about that, it’s about the couple’s history together & how they link with both their parents lives as well.
Aside from one plot point, which I considered jarring, this was excellent. ‘Mothering Sunday’ aside the most recent books by Swift have been only slightly above average. This was right up my street. I eagerly rushed to finish it off.
This one was first published in 2007 but has been out of print for a while and only in the last few a weeks has been republished. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I think it’s up there in the top four of the things he’s written.
The story - written in second person narrative - concerns a couple lying in bed in the early hours of the morning. The husband is asleep, the wife is awake & our narrator. In a few hours time they’ll have something very important to tell their children (twins - a girl & boy) who have recently turned 16.
For about the first two thirds of the novel it’s unclear what it is they will will be telling their kids (although in fairness it’s relatively easy to guess) but the book isn’t so much about that, it’s about the couple’s history together & how they link with both their parents lives as well.
Aside from one plot point, which I considered jarring, this was excellent. ‘Mothering Sunday’ aside the most recent books by Swift have been only slightly above average. This was right up my street. I eagerly rushed to finish it off.
December 5, 2023
Regrettably, I didn’t much like this. Swift can write well, weave characters with depth and intricacies, and at the core of this book about a mother waiting till morning when she and her husband are to deliver important news to their teenage daughter and son, there’s a plot of some interest.
However, the treatment just did not work for me. Just. Did. Not. Work. We are supposed to believe that this book of ~250 pages is the thoughts of a woman lying in bed. This is not convincing, no-one thinks in this manner - no thoughts are this detailed, this clear, this ‘everything introduced in the correct order to maintain the literary tension’ and as a consequence it completely failed in this regard for me. No tangents. No uncertainty. No gaps. Just everything told in the right manner to serve the story. Has this been done as an epistolary novel it might have worked but as the thoughts of a woman in bed, no.
In addition, the book was egregious in its reliance on ‘withhold information and tease it out as long as possible’ nature, which I find a bit lazy. I would’ve been more interested had the pre-telling been the first 40-50% of the book, and had the novel explored the events after this revelation.
However, the treatment just did not work for me. Just. Did. Not. Work. We are supposed to believe that this book of ~250 pages is the thoughts of a woman lying in bed. This is not convincing, no-one thinks in this manner - no thoughts are this detailed, this clear, this ‘everything introduced in the correct order to maintain the literary tension’ and as a consequence it completely failed in this regard for me. No tangents. No uncertainty. No gaps. Just everything told in the right manner to serve the story. Has this been done as an epistolary novel it might have worked but as the thoughts of a woman in bed, no.
In addition, the book was egregious in its reliance on ‘withhold information and tease it out as long as possible’ nature, which I find a bit lazy. I would’ve been more interested had the pre-telling been the first 40-50% of the book, and had the novel explored the events after this revelation.
April 16, 2024
At a certain point, maybe a little before the middle I seriously considered abandoning the book solely because of the constant teasing with "tomorrow ", "what tomorrow will bring ", "life after tomorrow "..
Now that I've endured and finished the story, I do like the premise and the main theme but I wish it was a little better crafted. The repetition made me roll my eyes so hard that I now know what my orbits look like.
Now that I've endured and finished the story, I do like the premise and the main theme but I wish it was a little better crafted. The repetition made me roll my eyes so hard that I now know what my orbits look like.
March 1, 2022
I very much enjoyed the first half of this book - but felt it was too long and had too little to sustain it for the full length. It’s more 3.5 stars really - I love Swift’s writing and the second person narrative was unusual - but felt the ‘suspense’ was insufficient to sustain a novel of this length.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 272 reviews