"A retired widow in rural Connecticut wakes to an unexpected visit from her childhood best friend whom she hasn't seen in forty-nine years. An older man who has traveled from Manhattan to meet his newborn granddaughter collapses in a hotel lobby in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A sixty-seven-year-old taxi driver in Kauai receives a phone call from the mainland that jars her back to a traumatic past. Seemingly disconnected lives come together as half-century old secrets begin to surface in Bill Clegg's second novel. At its heart, The End of the Day is about the phenomenon of female friendship, its force and its breaking points, as well its most shaping influences-family, class, age, and power"--