Literary Fiction · ThoughtfulThree women, three decades, one day each
The Hours
One day in the life of three women, linked by a Virginia Woolf novel
The novel follows three women, each during a single day. In 1923, Virginia Woolf is writing Mrs Dalloway in Richmond, outside London. In 1949, Laura Brown, a housewife in Los Angeles, prepares a birthday party for her husband. In 1999, Clarissa Vaughan, a publisher in New York, plans a party for her friend Richard, a poet.
More about this book
Who
Virginia Woolf, Laura Brown and Clarissa Vaughan, three women connected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway.
World
Richmond, London, in 1923; Los Angeles in 1949; and New York City in 1999.
What makes it different
It is a tribute to Woolf's Mrs Dalloway; Woolf's working title for that book was The Hours. Cunningham echoes her style, including stream-of-consciousness narration. It won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was made into a 2002 film.
Feel
Short and absorbing, with three storylines that echo each other.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Behind the book
The title is the working title Virginia Woolf originally used for Mrs Dalloway. Cunningham has said in a televised interview that he was preoccupied with the number three while writing, and the novel contains several groupings of three.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- The HoursWikipedia