One Day
- Introduction
- Book Excerpt
- Reviews
- Emma Morley's Mix Tape
- One Day - the movie
‘I can imagine you at forty,’ she said, a hint of malice in her voice. ‘I can picture it right now.’
He smiled without opening his eyes. ‘Go on then.’
15th July 1988. Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways.
So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year which follows?
One Day is a funny/sad love story spanning twenty years, a book about growing up – how we change, how we stay the same.
‘One Day is a wonderful, wonderful book: wise, funny, perceptive, compassionate and often unbearably sad. It’s also, with its subtly political focus on changing habits and mores, the best British social novel since Jonathan Coe’s What A Carve Up. – John O’Connell, The Times.
‘The funniest, loveliest book I’ve read in ages. Most of all it is horribly, cringingly, absolutely 100% honest and true to life. I lived every page.’ – Jenny Colgan.
‘A brilliant book about the heartbreaking gap between the way we were and the way we are…the best weird love story since The Time Traveller’s Wife’ – Tony Parsons.
One Day is a funny/sad love story spanning twenty years, a book about growing up – how we change, how we stay the same.
‘One Day is a wonderful, wonderful book: wise, funny, perceptive, compassionate and often unbearably sad. It’s also, with its subtly political focus on changing habits and mores, the best British social novel since Jonathan Coe’s What A Carve Up. – John O’Connell, The Times.
‘The funniest, loveliest book I’ve read in ages. Most of all it is horribly, cringingly, absolutely 100% honest and true to life. I lived every page.’ – Jenny Colgan.
‘A brilliant book about the heartbreaking gap between the way we were and the way we are…the best weird love story since The Time Traveller’s Wife’ – Tony Parsons.
Some people - well, okay, one person - has asked me what's on the rest of those mix tapes that Emma makes for Dexter (one in 1989, one in 2000). I thought it might be fun, not to mention a distraction from real work, to finish the compilations. So here they are, muddled up and in over-extended form. Emma has a fine record collection, and far better taste than Dexter, and this could have been two-hundred songs long. But if I don't stop now, I'll never write another word. Hope you enjoy it. p.s. I'm never quite sure about the ethics of Spotify, so please, please do go and buy these tracks if you enjoy them.
Emma Morley's Mix TapeNote - for those without access to spotify, there's a shortened version of this available as an iMix on the iTunes store. And for your info, here's a full track listing. If you've never heard Baby by Os Mutantes, Can't Find My Way Home by Ellen McIlwaine or Who Knows Where The Time Goes by Fairport Convention, then now's the time.
Emma Morley's Mix Tape.
Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack
There is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Fight The Power - Public Enemy
All I Want - Joni Mitchell
Sweet Jane - Cowboy Junkies
This is Love - PJ Harvey
Fade into You - Mazzy Star
On Saturday Afternoons in 1963 - Rickie Lee Jones
In My Life - The Beatles
Days - The Kinks
Walk on By - Dionne Warwick
Baby - Os Mutantes
These Days - Nico
Company - Rickie Lee Jones
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
Aria from the Goldberg Variations - Glenn Gould
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away - The Beatles
Pitseleh - Elliot Smith
Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jeff Buckley
All to You - Ellen Mcilwaine
Dedicated to the One I Love - The Shirelles
Corrina, Corrina - Bob Dylan
Each and Everyone - Everything But The Girl
Nothing in this World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout My Girl - The Kinks
Vitamin C - Can
Good Fortune - PJ Harvey
My Sweet Lord - Nina Simone
St. Swithin's Day - Billy Bragg
I Know It's Over - The Smiths
Dress - PJ Harvey
Northern Sky - Nick Drake
I Say A Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin
It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career - Belle and Sebastian
Protection - Massive Attack
Uncertain Smile - The The
Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Fairport Convention
Missing - Everything But The Girl
Pearly Dew-drops - The Cocteau Twins
Cruel - Prefab Sprout
Heroes - David Bowie
Magic in the Air - Badly Drawn Boy
Needle in a Haystack - Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
The Bottle - Gil Scott-Heron
Gloria - Patti Smith
Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt
Love and Affection - Joan Armatrading
I Heard It Through The Grapevine - The Slits
All Day and All Of The Night - The Kinks
The Boy With The Arab Strap - Belle & Sebastian
Once Around The Block - Badly Drawn Boy
That Summer Feeling - Jonathan Richman
I'm A Believer - Robert Wyatt
Long Hot Summer - The Style Council
Can't Find My Way Home - Ellen McIlwaine
In June, July and August of 2010 we travelled between London, Paris, Edinburgh and Brittany, making our film version of One Day. Lone Scherfig directed, Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess played Emma and Dexter, and a wonderful cast, including Jodie Whittaker, Romola Garai, Rafe Spall, Ken Stott, and Patricia Clarkson, played the other roles.
At time of writing, the movie is still in the final stages of post-production, but will be released in July 2011 in the US, August and September elsewhere . It's not a slavishly faithful adaptation - the eight-hour version of One Day will have to wait - but I hope we've stayed true to the tone and spirit of the book, and I hope you enjoy the movie.
