Book presentation of
A Single Day
by Alain Elkann
Trans. by K. E. Bättig von Wittelsbach
(New York: Bordighera Press, 2024)
Originally published in Italian as
Una giornata. (Bompiani, 2010).
A Single Day is a short novel about the brevity of human destinies! In his Parisian apartment, Edmond Bovet-Maurice talks with the housekeeper: he must choose the right dress for the day, perhaps he is a little fat, he has a sweet tooth. He is 68 years old; he is two years away from retirement, he is a successful man, charming, elegant. A director of a large museum, he is looking forward to new conquests: he wants to join the French Academy.
Praise for Alain Elkann’s A Single Day
“As the reading progresses, the tone of the story fits a plot that thickens with mystery. Amidst hidden truths, false truths, and twists and turns, the reader is swept up in a fast-paced crescendo until it explodes.”
Noemi Stuchi, Not Only Magazine
“[Edmond Bovet-Maurice, main character of A Simple Day,] is an elusive man, but concreteness is as much a gift of his as being only in appearance above all else. Elkann paints his habits and foibles, fears and desires, doubts and (in)certain-ties to perfection by having us follow him from one side of the most beautiful Paris to the other, in his slow but gradual penetration into the discomfort of a day that—after initial moments that are even a bit comical—will lay bare heavy and humiliating truths.”
Giuseppe Fantasia, HUFFPOST
“Gradually, as the hours pass, following the protagonist through his various appointments, [the author probes] into [the protagonist’s] digressions in order to restore the otherwise invisible reverse side of the plot of his own life. Thus, a tale with a seemingly simple and banal structure opens up to the exploration of a family secret and to the many left hanging by a rough past.”
Marina Valensise, il Foglio
“A book full of references to other books, which move through it like mirages. There is a mole, on the skin of the handsome protagonist, to be feared as Ivan Il’ic fears the bruise in Lev Tolstoy, there is a listlessness in manner that becomes rigor at work that is all The Great Gatsby. Yet it is a modern novel, fast-paced, elegant, vaguely melancholic.”
Valeria Parrella, Grazia
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