"Reading [ The End of the Day ] is like studying a stained-glass window up close, each piece bright and sharply cut, but when you step back and see it as a whole you discover a large, beautiful, mysterious work of art." --David Ebershoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife Following his acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Did You Ever Have a Family , Bill Clegg returns with a deeply moving, emotionally resonant second novel about the complicated bonds and breaking points of friendship, the corrosive forces of secrets, the heartbeat of longing, and the redemption found in forgiveness. A retired widow in rural Connecticut wakes to an unexpected visit from her childhood best friend whom she hasn't seen in forty-nine years. A man arrives at a Pennsylvania hotel to introduce his estranged father to his newborn daughter and finds him collapsed on the floor of the lobby. A sixty-seven-year-old taxi driver in Kauai receives a phone call from the mainland that jars her back to a traumatic past. These seemingly disconnected lives come together as half-century-old secrets begin to surface. It is in this moment that Bill Clegg reminds us how choices--to connect, to betray, to protect--become our legacy. Deeply observed and beautifully written, this novel is a feat of storytelling, capturing sixty years within the framework of one fateful day.