Early in the novel, ALL DAY IS A LONG TIME, David Sanchez writes:

You have a strong compulsion toward beauty, but only as an outsider. You should allow yourself to be a part of it. The line is self-drawn. It’s an illusion. (Pg. 55)

These words dance around the essence of David, the protagonist, who at age 14 runs away from home to pursue a girl and ends up trying crack cocaine for the first time. Thus resulting in his immediate addiction.

Through stunning prose, Sanchez allows David to reveal his internal life as an addict and all of the raw vulnerabilities that come with and possibly contribute to his addiction. 

What is happening to me? I had a scream inside of me, but it would not come out. (Pg. 80)

I am not only captivated by this debut novel and the heart-breaking internal life of David, but I am also surprised by how relatable this story feels to a non-addict. 

The sense of being outside of every experience, the deep wounds of feeling misunderstood and the spectacular sensitivities that David details reveals a poetic nature to the pain life can inflict. 

I turned page after page hoping that David would heal; hoping that he would find the right people to help him enjoy life without needing to stimulate or numb himself to survive; hoping that he would feel loved enough to fight for himself to overcome the intense pulls of addiction.

I was sweating from fear, which was crowding the inside of my heart. (Pg. 106)

ALL DAY IS A LONG TIME is a coming of age story told through the lens of the inner sensitivities of a drug addict. What David will do for another high and why he will do it reads as achingly specific. 

I was coming apart at the seams. I was locked in the theater watching the play of my mind onstage, watching the information come in and out and dance across the lobes, and I was stuck in the theater screaming, “Don’t go in there!” (Pg. 147)

Reading this novel will leave you with a profound empathy for anyone plagued with addiction. David is highly sensitive, highly intuitive, and his internal life is vastly different from his external appearance. 

As David moves through life and tries time and time again to reconcile his sensitivities with the world, he eventually finds purpose by exploring his relationship with memories. 

He finds a striving within himself to reflect beauty back into the world. He embraces the exhilaration of the unknown and gives himself over to the idea of reflecting beauty back to the sun, to the planet, to God … or whatever you want to call it.

In the end, Sanchez uses David’s journey as a way to ask the reader to step into their own purpose; to step into the light that shines on any given person when they choose to find purpose in the beauty of existence. 

Anything you can say, you can say without words (Pg. 228)

This is a slam dunk first novel. I cannot wait to read whatever David Sanchez writes next.

And P.S.—If you watch Euphoria, you will love this novel.