Novels whose stories take place within one day.

[flodnak]

Arthur Haley’s Airport takes place during a single evening and the early hours of the next morning - well under 12 hours in all.

[WordMan]

@KneadToKnow

Nicholson Baker’s first two novels, The Mezzanine and Room Temperature both take place during extremely short periods of time. The former takes place during an escalator ride and the latter during the bottle-feeding of an infant.

Obviously, they both concern themselves heavily with how the mind free-associates.

FWIW, The Mezzanine was very good. Room Temperature I could have done without.

ETA: His later book Vox may cover a very short period of time as well, I don’t remember it as well.

Vox is a single, long phone conversation taking place after the couple hooks up in a phone-sex chat room, or thereabouts. So yeah, it qualifies.

I really enjoyed The Mezzanine, too.

[Dewey_Finn]

@Shoeless

Ulysses is the first thing that popped into my head.

Never read it, but it’s the first thing I thought of. And another (also unread) novel is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Edited to add that I didn’t see that book was already mentioned.

[Skammer]

@Elendil_s_Heir

Would Dickens’s A Christmas Carol count? It takes place in less than a 24-hour timespan, late afternoon on Christmas Eve to early Christmas morning.

I’d count it in terms of the time constriction, but I don’t think I’d count it as a novel. It’s really more of a short story, isn’t it? Or perhaps a short novella.

[Shoeless]

@Shoeless

Ulysses is the first thing that popped into my head.

@Dewey_Finn

Never read it, but it’s the first thing I thought of.

Actually, I never have either.

[Annie-Xmas]

I cannot believe that I, Ed McBain’s biggest fan since I was a child, did not remember Killer’s Wedge. Who else could write a mystery novel where all the action takes place in four hours?

[AuntiePam]

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan. It’s a good one too, about the last day/night at a restaurant before it closes. Everything O’Nan writes is good.