A novel in search of one, count 'em one, likeable character. I can't imagine spending time (years?) writing these people. In the wealthy CT town of Wells, three girls grow up, two together and one apart. Dana is the only daughter of Mayflower-type parents who own the largest mansion in town, complete with stables and live-in staff, one of whom is daughter Lupita, ignored by Dana and physically and mentally abused by her caretaker father. Dana is best friends with Jackie, who lives next door (or over the adjacent fields). Dana’s burgeoning romantic and sexual feelings for Jackie are not reciprocated. One disastrous night at Jackie's senior prom set up events that culminate in a rape, an adoption, and secrets kept for fifty years. The two characters who show any kindness, or act rationally, are minor and colorless. Lupita's survival, as portrayed in the closing, is satisfying, but not much else is. The audio book is read by the author in a monotone. ( )

This is a lot like the Joyce Carrol Oates book I read
We Were The Mulvaneys. This book- The End of the Day by Bill Clegg is 300 pages of sheer boredom, where what little happens in the book isn’t worth it.

This author and many others who’s entire life has been spent in Manhattan, Connecticut, and the Hamptons have no clue how most of the world behaves. The author of this book and the book Itself had multiple warnings signs! Long-listed for a Man Booker prize- shorthand for a crappy book loved by critics, and the author is a literary agent in NYC, if you ever wondered what a 300 page story in the New Yorker, would be like, well read this and you will know.
A book has to have to have at least one interesting character to be enjoyable. This book didn’t seem to have anything interesting.
Books about vacant, shallow, narcissistic people aren’t interesting, they can be funny, but this book isn’t funny either.
It is a book by a liberal New York elite for other New York Elites, there is nothing wrong with this- they are entitled to have something enjoyable to read at the beach too.
So why 3 stars?
Because the author definitely knows how to write! The story just didn’t work for me. ( )

I looked forward to reading this novel, having enjoyed his earlier Did You Ever Have a Family. As with that novel, Clegg introduces his characters slowly, letting the details accrue gradually, so that our understanding of them builds slowly. For quite some time, we may not understand what links Dana—whose memory seems to be slipping—with Jackie, best friend of her youth, Lupita—a taxi driver in Hawaii—and Hap, who sits by the hospital bed of his dying father. Hap has never met these three women, but the secrets that they each carry are hugely meaningful to his complicated life. As a boy, Hap adored his world-traveling father, but now he wonders who this man truly was. Bill Clegg has a deep insight into nuanced relationships, whether they are “a friend in name and habit more than someone who could be counted on…[who can] make sure nothing was forgotten, or lost” or a great-grandparent, seen with new eyes, and “why it makes her feel strangely relieved she does not know.” Through multiple points of view, we learn of their limitations and heavy regrets, sorrows and fresh understandings as they reappraise their pasts. Clegg surprised me with individual sentences, such as: “She would think back on this hour with him all the rest of her life and remember it as the happiest, most exquisitely perfect, and the most misleading” and with how he chose to end the novel, not with every bow tied neatly, but with some secrets kept intact and held close. [I received a free copy of this book from the publisher] ( )

I am attracted to books set in Connecticut since I spent 40 years of my life there. Through his characters, Bill Clegg portrayed both the charm and beauty of northwestern Connecticut as well as the enormous chasms in socioeconomic status among its residents. Main characters Dana Goss and Jackie live near each other in one of the towns served by the real Housatonic Valley Regional High School, the first public regional high school in Connecticut; it serves the sparsely populated northwestern area of Connecticut. Clegg uses the economically diverse characters to inform readers about access to private schools in that area of Connecticut. Only a few of the privileged citizens attend public school along with the farmers and children of domestic workers.

In Wells, a fictional town, Dana’s family lives in an estate called Edgeweather, and Jackie’s family lives in a more modest house within walking distance. Despite warnings from her mother, Jackie is allured into a friendship that Dana engineers. To serve Dana’s wishes and interests, and for most intents and purposes, they become best friends and remain close for much of their childhoods. However, there was a horrible falling out between the two women when they were young adults and haven’t spoken to each other for more than forty years.

During high school, Jackie is in love with Floyd Howland, a farmer from the area, and she traps him into marrying her with an unplanned pregnancy. It is clear that Dana disapproved of Jackie’s marriage to Floyd. Clegg uses several characters’ viewpoints to develop a story replete with misinformation and a slew of contradictory stories related to what happened so many years ago to destroy the relationship that Dana and Jackie had as youngsters.

Another prominent character, Lupita Lopez, daughter of the hired help at the Edgeweather Estate, is about the same age as Jackie and Dana but indeed a member of a different social class. Lupita is abused by her father and tormented at school. The reader learns early in the story that she has moved to Hawaii and chauffeurs tourists around.

Clegg creates nuanced relationships, yet much of the story is dark. Each character has secrets and regrets. Dishonesty and manipulation prevail as the characters' stories unfold. He uses powerful New England symbolism such as the “Great Elm” tree and brick walls swarming with ivy to represent the steadfast lives of the wealthy people who own multiple homes, usually in Connecticut, New York, AND Florida, and employ foreigners as servants. Connecticut is often called the “Land of Steady Habits,” This book forces one to wonder how much has or has not changed among the real people living in old Yankee towns like the fictional Wells.

https://quipsandquotes.net/?p=485 ( )

I was not happy with the ending. 3 people’s lives with dips into the past told over one day. The truth stayed hidden. ( )