"Day": Surviving Pandemics & Childhood

On Michael Cunningham's new novel, "Day", how artists confront the pandemic, and whether anyone survives their childhood.

Day, Michael Cunningham (2024)

There’s a handful of things that everybody has an opinion on, and few are more contentious than what does or doesn’t screw up children. Just when it seemed no topic could broach the ever-widening societal divides, school closures made many of us – on the left and the right, dues-paying party members and the politically nomadic – come together in wondering if there were downsides to keeping children segregated from each other. That kumbaya moment of parental ecumenism lasted about five minutes, of course, before worrying about school closures meant you were willing to sacrifice your child to COVID, while concern about schools opening meant you couldn’t wait to lace up your jackboots and start trampling on the freedom of children.

The frontlines of these battles aren’t the pundit pulpits on the news or the comments sections of YouTube; the rubber of ideology hits the road of reality in the homes of families trying to ensure their kids turn out as halfway dec…