Dispatch From The Field: Joe's Review of "By Nightfall"

Peter and Rebecca Harris: mid-forties denizens of Manhattan’s SoHo, nearing the apogee of committed careers in the arts—he a dealer, she an editor. With a spacious loft, a college-age daughter in Boston, and lively friends, they are admirable, enviable contemporary urbanites with every reason, it seems, to be happy. Then Rebecca’s much younger look-alike brother, Ethan (known in thefamily as Mizzy, “the mistake”), shows up for a visit. A beautiful, beguiling twenty-three-year-old with a history of drug problems, Mizzy is wayward, at loose ends, looking for direction. And in his presence, Peter finds himself questioning his artists, their work, his career—the entire world he has so carefully constructed.

Like his legendary, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Hours, Michael Cunningham’s masterly new novel is a heartbreaking look at the way we live now. Full of shocks and aftershocks, it makes us think and feel deeply about the uses and meaning of beauty and the place of love in our lives.

Joe writes:
There is something so familiar, so welcoming to me when I read a Michael Cunningham book.
Part of it is his writing style, how he never fails to talk about the surface while talking about the depth. How important beauty is to his characters. How what we want to say and what we say are not the same thing. How our desires change.

By Nightfall is a very good novel. Narrated by Peter Harris, an early-mid forties art dealer, married to Rebecca; Peter believes he has the life he has always wanted. Until Mizzy, Rebecca's younger (by almost 20 years) brother comes to New York for a visit, as he tries once again to reset his life into an acceptable course. What his visit does is to completely set Peter's life adrift.

With insightful prose and a gentle humor, Cunningham's characters live beyond the page. I
had unadulterated access to Peter's world: from watching him at work, at home, to seeing
his thoughts laid out before me. Exactly what a novel should do. This book is a book people should be talking about this fall."

Read an interview with the author here.