Tomorrow - Tapa dura

In his first novel since The Light of Day, the Booker Prize–winning author gives us a luminous tale about the closest of human bonds.

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. A revelation lies in store. Her children’s future lies before them. The house holds the family’s history and fate.

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 fear of loss, of the fragilities, illusions, and secrets on which even our most intimate sense of who we are can rest. As day draws nearer, Paula’s intensely personal thoughts touch on all our tomorrows.

Brilliantly distilling half a century into one suspenseful night, as tender in its tone as it is deep in its soundings, Tomorrow is an eloquent exploration of couples, parenthood, and selfhood, and a unique meditation on the mystery of happiness.

Graham Swift lives in London and is the author of seven previous novels: The Sweet-Shop Owner; Shuttlecock, which received the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; Waterland, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the Guardian Fiction Award, the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, and the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour; Out of This World; Ever After, which won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger; Last Orders, which was awarded the Booker Prize; and, most recently, The Light of Day. He is also the author of Learning to Swim, a collection of short stories. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages.