Old Master

Graham Swift has a secret. Lots of them, actually. In seven novels and a collection of stories, he has developed a knack for measuring out his revelations in coffee spoons, saving the best for last. Of course, Swift has a shelf full of other knacks, some nicked from Dickens, Hardy, Flaubert and other 19th century greats. Together, these skills have made him one of Britain's most celebrated novelists. But his latest, Tomorrow, is a model of delayed gratification.

That's what makes it so infuriating. Like his other novels, Tomorrow deals with sex, death, betrayal, history, intergenerational conflict, love and pain. But this one involves people who are mostly prosperous, likable and happy, and they largely stay that way throughout. Mike and Paula Hook live in an expensive London neighborhood and enjoy good health, great sex, rewarding jobs and adorable 16-year-old twins. "This has been a happy house," admits Paula. Good for her. Hasn't Swift read what Tolstoy said about all happy families being alike? Ah, but Mike and Paula have a secret ...

Swift is an enigma himself. London-born, Cambridge-taught, married with no children, he doesn't talk much about his methods or motives. He did, however, pursue a Ph.D. in Victorian literature, which may explain the handcrafted antique seriousness of his best work. That would include 1983's Waterland, a sweeping, impressively detailed family saga of fortune and folly. Swift's version was watered down into a movie with Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke, but the novel made the short list for the Booker Prize. Swift finally won the Booker in 1996 for Last Orders, an equally powerful tale of four London friends heading for the seaside to spread the ashes of a pub mate.

Both Swift's first novel, The Sweet Shop Owner(1980), in which a dying man reflects on his life, and his most recent one until now, The Light of Day(2003), about a disgraced former policeman trying to unravel a crime of passion, embody another of Swift's techniques: the action takes place in a single day, Ulysses-style. Tomorrow is a tool kit of such Swiftian tricks. Important facts are dripped sparingly, the narration is first person, and this time the action encompasses a single night. Lying sleepless next to her oblivious mate, Paula addresses an anxious monologue to her sleeping twins. "I'm the only one awake in this house on the night before the day that will change all our lives," she intones ominously. Tomorrow, she and Mike will confront the kids with wrenching news. Before disclosing it, she spends most of the book recounting her life before meeting Mike (comfortable), their courtship (cute), their work (she sells art, he runs a publishing firm), the houses they've inhabited (confusingly many), some nice family outings to the beach, a cat they once owned. Hurry, sunrise.

When the momentous, life-altering revelation finally comes, the real surprise is that it's pretty lame. Sixteen-year-olds see scarier stuff at the Cineplex, and you can find far more disruptive and entertaining traumas — flood, fire, financial ruin, murder, rape, penury — in Swift's previous novels.

And yet, despite its frustrating lack of world-class tragedy, there is something doggedly compelling about Tomorrow. Even when you know what's coming, the way Swift uses dialogue, weather, flashbacks, foreshadowing and sheer finesse to get Paula straight through till dawn — without sounding like a nattering neurotic — is impressive. It's like watching a 19th century master at the top of his form, using yesterday's winches and grommets to build today's world. Who cares what tomorrow may bring?