A Polish refugee whose boyfriend is dying. An FBI investigator chasing the subject of his 20-year obsession. A young man who has been comatose for over a year. The owner of a nature reserve in Israel. A seemingly random collection of people — yet they are all bound together by the threads of history, life, love, hatred, fear, miracles, and death.
As each chapter passes, these characters’ stories wind closer together. The reader begins to make connections between the past and the present, although telling truth from fiction is not always easy.
Nothing is black and white. No one story can exist without the ones that are happening now, and the ones that have come before. And the stories of the future depend on what happens today.
A marvelous read
I love stories like this simply because I enjoy intersections, seeing how things fit together — and Day for Night is a fabulous puzzle that begs to be solved.
Each chapter is narrated by a different character. As the chapters progress, the reader begins to make connections between the characters, and soon realizes that they are in fact all telling the same story — from different times, places, and perspectives. I got fully involved in the puzzle aspect of the novel, trying to guess how each character might be connected to the others.
Although all the switching back and forth in time and voice could have led to a confusing and unsatisfying story, Reiken creates distinctive chapters that each develop the plot further — one story is written in the format of transcribed police interviews; another in the form of a letter to an unborn child.
I enjoyed getting into each of the characters’ heads, and seeing how strings of individual events and actions slowly came together to tell one story. There were a couple aspects of the backstory that I wish had been explained further (the history of Dee and her brother, for example), but I enjoyed the rest of the book so much that this was hardly a deal breaker.
Next time you’re at the library or looking for a book at the store, consider picking up Reiken’s Day for Night. You won’t be disappointed.
Kick-ass Quotes:
“ ‘Can you tell who they are without the scars?’ I asked.
‘Not really.’ ” (p. 10)