The premise of One Bad Day sounded like a suspense story along the lines of Hitchcock, but what Rolston delivers instead is a refreshingly well-rounded cast of characters all going through bad days of their own. Though Marie, the girl with the boring life who gets a bit more excitement than she might have wanted, is definitely the protagonist of the story, there are no cardboard cutout characters here. Instead, this is a story about events unfolding, coincidences piling on top of one another to present almost everyone in the story with One Bad Day.
Rolston's story is one that requires the reader to believe in a lot of coincidences. Marie gets involved because it happens to be an old high school friend who stole the plot device, and she happens to run into him on the street. It happens to be the last day of a relationship for two of the characters, which leads one of them into a relationship with another, all of whom have been related to Marie's story somehow. Fortunately, these coincidences aren't so ludicrous that they're hard to swallow, despite the somewhat outlandish results of the coincidences that land people in the hospital or the morgue, and I didn't really find myself struggling to buy into it or thinking "Oh, come on!" as I do when a story fails to engage me and then tries to pull off the multiple coincidence story.
In fact, the coincidental happenings seem to be part of the point, as the book is in some ways a physical demonstration of Murphy's Law. It's a timeless story structure, the regular guy (or in this case girl) drawn into unbelievable events, and Rolston makes it work. One of the reasons it works so well is because Rolston doesn't just jump right into the more outrageous side of things, nor does he keep the whole story there when they start to happen. There's some very convincing dialogue between Marie and her friend Justin, and I was especially pleased at the realistic characterization of Teddy and his girlfriend Shawna. Most writers would have been content to let Teddy play the role of the faceless heavy, but Rolston involves him in the story as much as anyone else, and it makes for a more inviting read.
The story here is an enjoyable mix of chase sequences, implied or actual violence and dialogue-based interaction that makes the whole thing feel more real. Despite the strange circumstances of the day, it's pretty easy to put yourself into the place of these characters, and while I was certainly curious to find out where the plot was going and what the plot device everyone was seeking would turn out to be, mostly I just wanted to see what was going to happen to these people. I was saddened by what happened to one of the nicer characters, thanks almost entirely to bad luck, and I really felt for Marie when she realized just how much violence had entered her life on that day.
When Marie realizes this, it's a visual moment, and there are quite a few of those. Rolston is someone who most know as an artist rather than a writer, and his strengths in thinking visually definitely show up in this book. Leaving aside his likable, simple but plenty detailed style, the storytelling here is top notch. His characters show a range of emotions, and Rolston is able to use some exaggerated gestures to indicate mood or plot occurrences, which could seem a little goofy in light of the darker tone of the story but which work thanks to the ability of his art to bring the reader comfortably into this world. Rolston's work has a very kinetic quality to it, such that while his work consists of lots of quiet, fairly small scenes, it can also explode into action at any moment, whether that action is a character taking off running, being shot or just being surprised.
