NIGHT & DAY
This novel is the retelling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream set in the third world of New York in the 21st Century with a multicultural cast of characters fumbling their way through the various phases of romantic involvement while one obsessed college theatre department chair tries to mount a production of the play.
There are no car chases, bombings, or blood shed, unless you consider the broken hearts, but there is a lot of confusion, some changing of partners, and love, both consumed and unrequited. In other words, love flows much like life and though Shakespeare's comedy had a happy ending where all pairs of lovers were blissfully joined with, in some cases, the help of a magic potion, no such potion exists in modern times and happiness isn't quite so easily attained.
CHAPTERS
The wedding ceremony is in Japanese, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t have bothered Nick so much, but since he is playing father of the bride, he feels a little bit at a disadvantage. But the woman who seems to be in charge of what could only loosely be called a procession—Nick, the bride Miyo, and a flower girl—smiles a lot, bows frequently and keeps repeating his name with reverent tenderness, “Professor Grosso, Professor Grosso, Professor Grosso.” He thinks of the trinity and though that doesn’t dispel any dark thoughts, it does keep him grounded in religious etiquette. So we watch him try not to stumble down the aisle as he accompanies Miyo to the bridegroom. It’s then he notices the groom’s hair: so thick and wavy. He shudders slightly with nostalgia, remembering that he, too, once, long ago, had hair like that, and Nick resists the temptation to pat his balding head in a vain effort to relocate it. Sensory recall, he would call it and he’d continue to explain how they do those types of exercises in the Acting I classes over in the Theatre Department he chairs. But explaining it wouldn’t alter the fact that he is, at present, too busy grieving over that lost head of hair and musing over the fact that life was not fair.Instead, though, of dwelling on this, we see Miyo smiling sadly Hector’s way. And Hector, being the good sport that he is, smiles tentatively back. She tries hard to read hidden meanings in his smile but cannot, for the life of her, discern any. It is an embarrassed smile, as if he is not sure exactly what he is doing here, or at least just what his role should be: friend, colleague, fellow immigrant, ex-lover, current reminder of a life almost lived. She shudders slightly remembering the way he looked in the mornings, with the light slowly seeping into the bedroom and her eyes opening to him as his hand slid down across her breasts, along her abdomen, and finally came to rest between her legs, which also opened to him and that smile, that smile, that same sad smile lounging on her lips, that lounges there now, as if she were giving up all the secrets of her country to the barbarian horde.