Customer Reviews

On This Day

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Warning: ON THIS DAY will not blow your mind with its complex plot, excessively self- indulgent characters or snazzy, newfangled prose. You will not need to re-read chapters or passages to figure out what the author is saying. If this sounds refreshing then read on, because ON THIS DAY is an honest, elegant and compelling first novel by Nathaniel Bellows.

In 265 pages of simple, descriptive prose, 18-year-old Warren and his 20-year-old sister Joan flounder through a year of life after the quick successive deaths of their parents: their father from cancer and their mother by suicide. Brother and sister are left with the family home and "enough money to live on comfortably" in a small coastal Maine town. But they are not comfortable. Their physical world, while vibrant and full of detail, wears desperately thin.

Wallpaper collapses without warning. Curtains fade and unsavory smells fester and waft from sources unknown. The siblings cling and bond together in their helplessness. They screen phone calls obsessively to avoid "the enemies": alcoholic "Auntie E." and con artist uncle Steve, who surely are out to exploit them. Everyone, they imagine, is out to exploit them. In a touching exchange the two muse about getting a guard dog or building a moat: "protection from people in general".

Well-meaning townsfolk genuinely do want to connect with them, and their bumbling attempts are comical and strike painfully close to the heart. The real enemy attacks when Warren and Joan are looking the other way. Their father's former business partner Richard, using Joan and Warren's hermetic inaccessibility to his advantage, legally swindles the siblings out of their financial stake in the family-owned plant nursery. A heated standoff ensues. In a businessman versus brother and sister blowout, our heroes rise up in a powerful and united front. The dialogue here is spectacular, one of Bellows's real strengths.

The author demonstrates a profound grasp of the humor, hatred and intimate bond between brother and sister. He has keen insight into the workings and ambitions, or lack thereof, typically found in small-town Maine life. The prose is simple and honest. We instinctively trust Bellows; he seems to be taking us toward the light.

But we squirm midway through when the pacing slows to an exasperating crawl. Occasional nouns sag under the weight of one too many adjectives. Some scenes are repeated and we can't help but wonder if the author whiffed and is going in for another attempt. Warren is the narrator; this choice contributes to the drift.

Warren is an intelligent yet unambitious high school grad who passes his days cataloging microfiche at the local library and obsessing over household chores like retrieving mail. Together with his sister, he is able to create a protective shield. But he is incapable of reaching beyond it and opening his heart to the kind of help he desperately needs. Big sister is too distracted by her doltish and unreliable boyfriend to help.

But we like Warren. His pain is poignant and real. We might miss this gift of intimacy with him if he were a more dynamic character or, rather, if the author was less honest about the true nature of a shell-shocked teenage introvert. As Warren fumbles painfully to find the words "I need help" and a person to whom he can express them, we rally around him.

Ultimately, it is this honest treatment of our hero that keeps us flipping pages clear through to the end. The author speaks to us bravely through a challenging story without the use of gimmicks. And, in the end, we thank him. ON THIS DAY is a nice escape, and an honest and rewarding read.

--- Reviewed by Tanya Corrin

This book caught me by surprise - I saw it in a neighborhood bookstore, but didn't recognize the author's name. The lucid, elegant writing and evocative imagery immediately drew me in, then I couldn't put the book down. Bellows has accomplished an amazing feat in turning a novel about such weighty, impenetrable subjects - grief, memory, human frailty - into a compelling, and utterly readable, story. The characters are rich and varied, and you wind up caring deeply about the two main characters, Warren and Joan. And the book is often darkly funny, too. It's hard to believe this is a first novel. One of the best books I've read for some time.

As a young person myself, I found the conversation in this novel between the main characters unrealistic. There are several moments during reading when I frequently have to put down the book and think to myself, "Would I EVER say that?" The plot seems disconnected at times, and the characters of the book lack characteristics of young people.