The End of the Day   by Bill Clegg   

Published September 2020

This is the story of two childhood friends who have not seen each other for 49 years.  One day, one of the friends (never married) shows up at the home of the other friend (who is now a widow) and leaves a leather briefcase at the widow's door.   The story is cleverly crafted, but the reader has to keep track of the story--it moves from the friendship years story back and forth to the 49+ "No see but now you are here again" story.  The temper of this novel is a story of complicated bonds of friendship, breaking of those bonds and the role of forgiveness as time goes on.  This novel is nothing like Pulp Fiction, but the leather briefcase plays a big part throughout the story!

It is beautifully written.  The story flows so smoothly.    The characters are each unique to the story but connected with each other. 

One thing I did not consider "closed" at the end of the novel was the role of the Moravian Church.  The friend in this novel who remained single carries around a book about the Church.  I had to go look up the Moravian Church and it sounds pretty inviting and passionately spiritual.  But how it fit into this story, I am not quite clear; perhaps it is where the forgiveness and salvation comes in to the characters' resolutions. 
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OK--now the words in this novel that were new to me:

•      imprecisely-- not precise, inexact, vague
  
•      acquiescence--(I like the sound of this word)-passive acceptance or submission
•      pediment-- a style of architectual design often seen on houses
  
•      dust mote--a small speck of dust (no wonder I didn't know--we only have dust tumbleweeds)

And the Word I Will Never Use in Social Conversation:

     SOLIPSISTIC (What is this? It shows up three times in the novel.)
     Definition:  
     1. Philosophy: The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.
     2. The view that the self is the only reality.
     3. Absorption with oneself without consideration for the needs and desires of others: a self-indulgent memoir that revealed the author's SOLIPSISM.   

Finally:  My favorite sentence in the novel.

     "The heart is a stubborn muscle."


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The Interesting Annex:

Dust Motes:

There is more information and attention to dust motes than I could have even imagined.  First of all--lets get it straight what DUST is.

DUST: 
Dust is a collection of microscopic particles of material. Dust is heavy enough to see and light enough to be carried by the wind. Dust can be made up of pollen, bacteria, smoke, ash, salt crystal s from the ocean, and small bits of dirt or rock, including sand. Dust can also contain tiny fragments of human and animal skin cells, pollution, and hair. 

Dust motes is a speck of dust.

Dust motes seem to show up in more than bundles under your bed: 

• Dust mote geography (National Geographic)
• Dust mote science
• Dust mote science curriculum
• Synonyms for "dust more"
• Anagrams for "dust mote"
• Phrases that have the word "dust mote"
• Poems that have the word "dust mote"
• Quotes that have the word "dust mote"
• Rhymes with the word "dust mote"
• Poems that include the word "dust mote"
  
• Abbreviations containing the word "dust mote"
• Song lyrics that include the word "dust mote"
  
• Scripts containing the word "dust mote" 
• And my favorite:  You can find "dust mote" on Amazon!!