By Nightfall - Softcover

"The novel is less a snapshot of the way we live now than a consideration of the timeless consolations of love and art in the shadow of death, and its resolution--inevitable yet startling, like the slap of a wave--is a triumph." --"The New Yorker" "Rather witty and a little outrageous . . . for pure, elegant, efficient beauty, Cunningham is astounding. He's developed this captivating narrative voice that mingles his own sharp commentary with Peter's mock-heroic despair. Half Henry James, half James Joyce, but all Cunningham, it's an irresistible performance, cerebral and campy, marked by stabbing moments of self-doubt immediately undercut by theatrical asides and humorous quips. . . a cerebral, quirky reflection on the allure of phantom ideals and even, ultimately, on what a traditional marriage needs to survive." --Ron Charles, "The Washington Post" "[Cunningham] makes you turn the pages. He tells a story here, but not too much a story. You aren't deadened by detail; you're eager to know what happens next." --Jeanette Winterson, "The New York Times Book Review""" "Where art and humanity converge and where they part form a double helix in By Nightfall and account for the novel's most considered and lovely prose. Cunningham's observations of our desperate search for the real fill and break the heart." --Ellen Kanner, "Miami Herald""" "So many of Cunningham's physical descriptions read like confident prose poems, where you imagine what's left between the lines . . . As a testament to the richness of the literary imagination, 'By Nightfall' is a success. You can't read this novel without the sense of how worlds can be found in a drop of water, or in an offhand comment, or in the curve of a vase. . . 'By Nightfall' is a meditation on beauty, and it has its own indelible qualities of beauty." --Matthew Gilbert, "Boston Globe""" "Beauty, in its infinite variety and its power to transfix and seduce and delude, is a central theme of 'By Nightfall, ' the latest from the auth