what a difference a day makes
When Clover Hendry woke up on Thursday morning, she had no idea that the day would change her life. She had a bad headache, which she cured with some outdated Vicodin and a few antihistamines, before getting her husband and twin teenaged kids off to their days. Once they were safely on their way, and Clover had checked to make sure her daughter had turned her hair appliances off, she set off on her day.
On the train to work, it was an abandoned bag that started her worrying, the possibility of someone leaving a bomb behind, and she had a hard time shaking the nervous voices in her head. Then, as she was exiting her train, a rogue briefcase hit her in the back of the head, knocking her out. She got up and back on her way, scaring off the man with the briefcase by mentioning her husband is a lawyer, and wiping blood off the back of her head as she went to her television producing job.
Halfway through yet another boring yet unnecessary meeting, Clover decides it’s all too much, stands up, insults her boss, and walks out. For the first time ever, she is playing hooky, enjoying a leisurely day in Bristol, doing what she wants, eating what she wants, and letting the world deal with its own issues itself.
However, it’s never quite that simple, and as she makes her way around the city, spending time with an old friend, having lunch with a colleague, enjoying a modern art showing at the museum, problems old and new crop up, and Clover has to deal with a young child running amok, getting accused of shoplifting, finding her teenaged daughter at a protest instead of school. adopting an abandoned bunny, apologizing to an artist over a ruined exhibit, and her mother being melodramatic. But she’s used to cleaning up messes, and it’s the day for her, finally, to clean up the messes she makes by playing hooky and the ones she’d created by not being honest with those closest to her.
Clover Hendry’s Day Off is wild ride of a novel, a slow unraveling of a middle-aged woman coming to terms with having been too quiet and meek. Inspired by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, it’s a celebration of the moments of connection that make everything beautiful, an outpouring of frustration at how life betrays our trust, and a coming to terms with the choices we make and the consequences that those choices hold us to. It is sweet and funny and beautiful and maddening and powerful and amazing. With some light felonies and a purse bunny included.
I think there are a lot of women like Clover out in the world, women who feel like they’ve been lied to, deceived, overlooked, taken advantage of, walked on, passed over, and condescended to. This is the day Clover decides to take her power back, to live the life she wants and not the life others around her want her to. Not all of us can take on all of our problems in one day, or one big problem that has caused a multitude of ripples of similar problems, but we can certainly read how Clover did it and cheer her on. And reading her story just might inspire some positive movement of our own, even if it’s only investing in a beautiful dress with really good pockets or curly hair for a day.
Egalleys for Clover Hendry’s Day Off were provided by G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley, with many thanks.
