By nightfall

A New York Times bestseller by a Pulitzer Prize winner: A well-off middle-aged Manhattanite's life is upended by a visit from his struggling brother-in-law.

"Cunningham's observations of our desperate search for the real fill and break the heart." ―Ellen Kanner, Miami Herald

Peter and Rebecca Harris, midforties, are prosperous denizens of Manhattan. He's an art dealer, she's an editor. They live well. They have their troubles―their ebbing passions, their wayward daughter, and certain doubts about their careers―but they feel as though they're happy. Happy enough. Until Rebecca's much younger, look-alike brother, Ethan (known in the family as Mizzy, short for the Mistake), comes to visit. And after he arrives, nothing will ever be the same again.

This poetic and compelling masterpiece is a heartbreaking look at a marriage and the way we now live. Full of shocks and aftershocks, By Nightfall is a novel about the uses and meaning of beauty, and the place of love in our lives.

"Cunningham makes you turn the pages. . . . [He] writes so well, and with such an economy of language, that he can call up the poet's exact match."―Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times Book Review

"Cunningham reigns supreme. . . . For pure, elegant, efficient beauty, [he] is astounding."―The Washington Post

"There are sentences her so powerfully precise and beautiful that they almost hover above the pages." —Entertainment Weekly

"[Cunningham's] vigorous explorations of art and its meaning—along with a thick veil of eroticism—keep the pages turning." —People (four stars)