Tomorrow (Vintage International)
by Graham Swift
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Book Summary Information
Author: Graham SwiftEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-09
ISBN: 0307386430
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Tomorrow (Vintage International)
Book Review: It's not about the suspense
Summary: 4 Stars
The "great" revelation that Paula and Michael will supposedly inflict on their sixteen year old twin children "tomorrow" is not the issue in this novel nor is it meant to be, even though Paula goes on and on about it in her thoughts. The entire novel is the mental reminiscences and ruminations of Paula the evening before the planned revelation. Paula is lying in bed next to her husband Mikey who is asleep and she is ruminating about her life, her past, her children, and the supposedly life-changing news that they will tell the children tomorrow. The news is not terribly exciting despite Paula's declamations about how shattering it will be. Clearly the reader is not expected to be shocked and surprised as virtually none will be. Nevertheless I did find odd many of Paula's thoughts about the revelation toward the end of the novel. They simply made no sense to me. They were oddly exaggerated in a way that seemed out of touch with reality. Otherwise I found Paula's thoughts to be entirely comprehensible and unprovoking. I wonder if she was becoming a bit unhinged.
In my view, this novel is not about the revelation. It is really about life and love in the middle and upper-middle classes of South London and Sussex in the 1960s to 1980s. It is kind of a soft tour through the ordinary and banal lives of ordinary folks of that time and place. I was struck by how absolutely vanilla Paula's and Mikey's lives have been. The novel is set in Putney in that Paula and Mike now live in that most vanilla of inner London suburbs. That Paula's reminiscences are taking place in their upper-middle class home in Putney is significant for the novel, for it represents the ethos that Swift is trying to capture--the utterly banal and quotidian lives of these people. Their lives are so uneventful that the rather unexciting revelation that they will give tomorrow to their children is made into, or imagined into a huge upheaval. This highlights the unexciting nature of their lives. (Sorry to be so coy about the revelation but I don't want to be a spoiler even though nothing really is spoiled for the reader by knowing what's coming.)
So is this novel of the ordinary and unremarkable worth reading? Yes, I think it is. Swift gives an engaging and charming picture of life in South London and Sussex. At least I found it to be engaging and interesting. I liked these people, or at least I liked Paula and her images of her family. This is England. Not the England of the endless mystery stories with their murders, nor the England of some other novelists with all their sliminess and depression, just the ordinary England of ordinary pretty well-off decent people. And not just England but anywhere that people are living ordinary lives. Since I am, and I imagine most readers are, living ordinary vanilla lives, Paula's thoughts present something of a mirror for us and our rummaging about in our own thoughts and memories.
I listened to the audio book and found it to be very well read and produced. Lovely British accent. Cheers.
Summary of Tomorrow (Vintage International)
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.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 secrets on which our very identities rest. Brilliantly distilling half a century into one suspenseful night, Tomorrow is an eloquent meditation on the mystery of happiness.
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