The Light of Day

Read Graham Swift’s The Light of Day, with a very misleading cover that says ‘Winner of the Booker Prize’, referring not to the book but to Swift.

It also had probably the largest type I’ve ever seen in adult literature, but was reasonably entertaining. It takes old noir-ish detective clichés – George is an ex-cop and a private investigator who’s in love with a murderer client, and recounts the story of the mysterious workings of fate on a single day ... but avoids triteness by taking a grim and realistic look at what it really must be like to be in love with a woman who murdered her husband as she serves her time. I like the fragmented timeline, the randomness of the memories, the directness of the style – but there is just far, far too much padding, even for such a short book. It just doesn’t sustain interest, and becomes most tiresome.