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By Nightfall

About the Book

By Nightfall

Michael Cunningham’s award-winning novel The Hours was widely praised for intricately exploring the intersections of beauty, mortality, and love in the human experience. Set in Manhattan’s contemporary art world, By Nightfall raises bold new questions about these dynamics, through the lens of a seemingly ideal marriage.

Peter and Rebecca Harris have built rewarding careers in the arts. He’s an art dealer, she’s an editor, and their SoHo loft situates them at the heart of New York’s creative culture. Their only child, Bea, has left for college in Boston, and they are entering a phase marked by mundane yet tranquil routines. The predictability is shattered when Rebecca’s twenty-three-year-old brother, Ethan, arrives. A troubled soul who looks remarkably like his sister, albeit a much younger male version of her, he has struggled with drug addiction and can be relied on only to be unreliable. His family calls him Mizzy (“the mistake”), but he says he has found a new direction in life and may even want to become Peter’s protégé. As he immerses himself in the lives of his sister and her husband, he stirs a powerful awakening within them, opening their eyes to dangerous truths even while he is possibly deceiving them.

We hope that the following suggestions for discussion will enrich your experience of this literary tour de force.

By Nightfall
by Michael Cunningham

  • Publication Date: September 28, 2010
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • ISBN-10: 0374299080
  • ISBN-13: 9780374299088