By Nightfall
Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, returns with By Nightfall, the heartbreaking story of Peter and Rebecca Harris, two denizens of Manhattan’s SoHo, both in their mid-forties and reaching the apogee of their careers in the arts (he’s a respected dealer, she’s a highly sought-after editor). With their elegantly appointed loft, intelligent and accomplished college-age daughter, and coterie of artistic and influential friends, these contemporary urbanities appear to be quite happy.
Enter Rebecca’s much younger (and nearly identical) brother Ethan—known in the family as Mizzy, or “the mistake.” When this handsome, wayward twenty-three-year-old suddenly drops in for an unexpected visit, he’s clearly at loose ends and searching for some kind of direction in his life. Whenever Ethan’s around, Peter can’t help but start questioning the merits of his own life: his artists, their work, his career—in fact, the entire world he’s so carefully constructed…
This is a masterfully written novel brimming with shocks and aftershocks, and an uncompromising look at the uses and meaning of beauty, and the role that love plays in our lives.
Hardcover : 256 pages
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Co., Inc. ( September 28, 2010 )
Item #: 13-215456
ISBN: 9780374299088
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 x 0.58inches
Product Weight: 13.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
A short story - not a novel 
July 12, 2011
I was taken in by the book club description of this novel and looked forward to a book filled with complicated sibling relationships, with characters searching for "purpose" that we all tend to go through. Instead, I found a 'novel' that teased the reader with glimpses of characters with deep personal convictions, needs and wants; but didn't give the reader enough of each character to make them worthwhile. Often the author would begin a scene between Peter and another primary character and then send the reader into Peter's thoughts as he sends Peter's thoughts off on a tangent. This "wandering" could go on for paragraphs and then suddenly the reader was plopped back into the initial conversation. Sometimes I had to go back in the book to remember what the characters were talking about in the first place! The couple have a daughter and we are given tidbits of a daughter who does not want to even talk to her mother, but we don't know why. I could go on, but then I would be copying the author's style in writing this book. I'm not asking the author to answer all the questions or tie up all the loose ends, but at least give the reader enough character "flesh" to make us interested. And the ending of this "novel" made me laugh - seemed so offbase and made me care even less about the characters and the story.
Reviewer: Bonnie
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