Michael Cunningham's critically acclaimed novel, which is inspired by Virginia Woolf's MRS. DALLOWAY, tells three simultaneous stories. One is about Virginia Woolf while she is writing the novel in the mid-1920s. In another, a woman reading MRS. DALLOWAY in 1949 fights off despair. In the third, a woman named Clarissa (whose nickname is "Mrs. Dalloway") prepares a party for a friend in the late 1990s. The main action of each part of the novel takes place over the course of one day--as MRS. DALLOWAY does. A New York Times Notable Book for 1998.