Michael Cunningham on new novel, 'Day'

Cunningham was in conversation with WAMC's Joe Donahue at The White Hart Inn.
Photo by Alexander Wilburn
In Michael Cunningham’s new novel “Day,” which he discussed with WAMC’s “The Book Show” host Joe Donahue at The White Hart Inn in Salisbury, Conn., the night of Thursday, Nov. 30, a New York family faces changes over the course of three years.
Like his 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Hours,” Cunningham’s first novel in a decade is a triptych, told in three parts. The story begins on the morning of April 5, 2019, moves forward to the afternoon of April 5, 2020, and concludes on the evening of April 5, 2021.
“There’s the Holy Trinity, the three-act play. We are consistently drawn to the number three,” Cunningham told Donahue. “Any two beings, objects, can only be in proximity to one another. You see this napkin…” he held up his cocktail napkin and water glass to demonstrate his point. “You can always draw a straight line between the napkin and the glass. If you add a third element, endless permutations are possible. At the subatomic level, an atom of hydrogen, a nucleus with one electron, behaves entirely predictably. An atom of something like helium, an atom with two electrons — it’s impossible to tell how it will behave. When two storm systems are in proximity, they just go on, side by side. When the third one joins, it’s a hurricane.”
In addition to the novel’s three acts, the story centers on three adults cohabitating in a Brooklyn brownstone: former high school golden boy Dan, now married to his wife, Isabel, as well as Isabel’s younger brother Robbie, who moves in with the pair, often acting as a third, or even primary parent to the couple’s two children. Cunningham described the unconventional family unit as “Not quite good enough to be good, but not quite bad enough to dissolve… Dan and Isabel are screwing the kids up and are helpless in the face of it. The marriage is fraying, and they’re doing the best they can, but they are complicit in the novel. They are watching in horror as their inability to continue loving each other harms their children.”
Robbie’s presence further strains the relationship, as a triangle of affection disrupts the status quo of the cozy brownstone. “Dan and Isabel are each, in their own way, in love with Robbie,” said Cunningham. “Dan flirts with Robbie with a clear understanding that Robbie’s not going to make a move or anything. So it’s this atmosphere in which Dan, for complicated reasons, feels free to be flirtatious with Robbie. One of my favorite quotes is from Oscar Wilde, who said, ‘Everything in the world is really about sex except sex. Sex is really about power.’”
Though COVID-19 and the pandemic are never named directly, the isolation created for New Yorkers forced to remain in their homes weighs heavily on the middle section of the novel, set in April 2020. Cunningham said, while he wanted to avoid the trappings of the post-COVID novel, he was keenly interested in the early responses to the crisis, the fastidious washing of groceries, the loneliness and the paranoia. He felt a contemporary novel set in New York couldn’t overlook the emotional toll of the outbreak. “I didn’t want to write a pandemic novel, yet it would have felt like setting a novel in London during World War II without mentioning the Blitz.”
Besides attending The White Hart event, sponsored by Oblong Books in Millerton, N.Y., the New York City-based writer has another Connecticut connection — his 14-year teaching position at the English department of Yale University in New Haven, Conn. “The students are amazing. I teach a literature class that is really about craft. We do a lot of reading, but the implied question is: Virginia Woolf picks up the dictionary and finds ‘The Lighthouse’ in it, then Toni Morrison picks up the same dictionary and finds ‘Beloved.’ How do they do that?”
Habitat for Humanity assisted in the construction and sale of this house at 14 Rudd Pond Road for $392,000.
MILLERTON — Official Dutchess County property transfers for the four months ending in May are fascinating from the sale of the former Presbyterian Church on Main Street for $420,000 to the $300,000 sale of 8.3 acres of the historic Perotti farm for $300,000 where major barn restoration is now underway.
Actively listed properties at the end of July include 14 parcels of land ranging in price from $60,000 for a five-acre lot to six parcels over a million dollars. 15 single family homes are on the market including an $11,750,000 estate on Moadock Road and four village homes for under $500,000.
Residential
14 Rudd Pond Road — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on .64 acres sale recorded in March for $392,000 to Anthony M. Macagnone.
81 Rudd Pond Road — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on .45 acres recorded in April for $360,300 to Sara Whitney Laser.
926 Smithfield Road — Historic house and barns on 8.31 acres sale recorded in May for $300,000 to Colonial House & Barn LLC.
5408 Route 22 — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on 5.38 acres sale recorded in May for $465,000 to Erich McEnroe.
The former Presbyterian Church on Main Street in the Village of Millerton was purchased in May for $420,000 and then pained grey.Christine Bates
Commercial
1 Smith Court, Village of Millerton — Office building sale recorded in March for $825,000 to OneJohnStreet LLC.
58 Main Street, Village of Millerton — Sale of former church recorded in May for $420,000 to 58 Main Street LLC.
5546 Route 22 — Sale of former restaurant on 2 acres recorded in May for $70,000 to Haithem Oueslati Trustee.
Land
State Line Road (#789358) — Sale recorded of 20.82 acres of vacant residential land in March for $150,000 to Elliott Squared LLC.
148 Morse Hill — Sale recorded of 30.03 acres of vacant productive farm land in 5 parcels in March for $800,000 to Thorne Water LLC.
*Town of North East and Village of Millerton property transfers from March through May not previously reported as sales in The Millerton News are sourced from Dutchess County Real Property Office monthly reports for March through May. Details on property from Dutchess Parcel Access. Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Advisor with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
MILLERTON — Heavy rain brought down trees on Park Avenue, South Center Street and Century Boulevard, causing blackouts across the village on Friday, July 25.
The Millerton Moviehouse cancelled film showings for the afternoon following the outages, as stated in a release sent out to Moviehouse supporters over email Friday afternoon.
Village Clerk Lisa Cope said the downed trees landed on power lines, causing localized blackouts for many village residents and businesses between 3 and 6 p.m. Friday evening.
Central Hudson crews cleared the trees and restored power to the village that evening.