Three Days in June

Three Days in June (2025) is a literary fiction work by best-selling American author Anne Tyler. Tyler has published widely throughout her career and has a large and loyal readership. Three of her novels, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988), were Pulitzer Prize finalists, and Breathing Lessons won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. The Accidental Tourist won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1985 and was adapted into an award-winning film starring Geena Davis, Kathleen Turner, and William Hurt. Tyler is known for character-driven novels that explore the complexities of familial bonds and the transition from one stage of life to the next. Her works are characterized by realism, attention to detail, and a particular focus on parent-child relationships and marriage. Three Days in June shares that focus on family relationships: It follows protagonist Gail Baines throughout three days of events surrounding her daughter’s wedding. Gail navigates both personal and professional crises and comes to terms with how various life transitions reshape family connections. The novel explores themes of The Nuances of Aging, The Complexities of Familial Relationships, and The Impact of Personal Crises on Self-Perception, providing insight into its primary characters’ experiences throughout the narrative. 

This guide refers to the 2025 hardcover edition published by Alfred. A. Knopf.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death.

Plot Summary

Protagonist Gail Baines and her supervisor, Marilee, the headmistress of the school where Gail is assistant headmistress, have a meeting. Gail learns that Marilee will soon retire but that Gail will not be promoted, as she anticipated, to Marilee’s position. Rather, Marilee will hire an outside candidate. Stunned, Gail listens as Marilee further explains that this outside candidate would prefer to bring in her own assistant headmistress. Gail will soon be out of a job. She is perplexed about why she was passed over, and Marilee explains that Gail lacks the tact that the job requires. No one has ever told Gail that she is tactless before, and her confusion deepens. As soon as the two finish speaking, Gail rushes home, leaving all her belongings, even her sweater, at school. She sits silently in her living room, thinking about her parents, the passage of time, and her daughter Debbie’s upcoming wedding. She is in her sixties, nearing retirement, and has no idea what she is going to do next.

Gail’s reverie is soon interrupted: Her ex-husband, Max, arrives at her front door with a duffel bag and a cat carrier. He was supposed to stay with Debbie and her fiancé, Kenneth, during the days leading up to the wedding, but he has a new foster cat, and Kenneth is “deathly” allergic to cats. The intrusion irritates Gail, but she feels that she has little choice but to allow Max to stay with her. Although there is much about Max that she finds fault with, the two have developed a certain camaraderie in the years following their divorce, and they chat amiably as Max gets himself and the cat settled.

Gail runs some last-minute errands before that evening’s rehearsal and dinner. She has to pick up her wedding outfit and decides to get her hair done. She typically cuts her own hair and is uncomfortable in the salon. She knows that her daughter is having a day of “beauty” and wonders why anyone would choose to spend hours getting their hair, nails, and makeup done by professionals in a setting that necessitates lengthy conversations with strangers. 

She returns home and has lunch with Max. The two discuss Debbie’s wedding, and Gail recalls her and Max’s wedding years ago. Max would like her to adopt his foster cat, but she adamantly refuses. She enjoys petting it but does not want to be a caretaker for anyone or anything. Suddenly, Debbie rushes into Gail’s house. Kenneth’s sister, Elizabeth, has just informed her that Kenneth cheated on her at a recent party. Debbie is livid and wants to call off the wedding. Gail is poised to help her cancel everything, but Max encourages Debbie to at least hear Kenneth’s side of the story. She reluctantly agrees and heads out to speak with him.

After Debbie leaves, Max and Gail discuss the situation. Gail remains adamant that Kenneth is guilty and that Debbie should leave him, while Max points out that it is Debbie’s decision. Besides, he notes, Debbie may forgive Kenneth and choose to marry him despite his indiscretion. When they next speak with Debbie, she is calm. She explains that it was all a misunderstanding and that the wedding will proceed as planned. Max and Gail pick up Gail’s mother, Joyce, and head to the church for the rehearsal. Gail is not fond of Kenneth’s family: His parents are affluent and well-dressed, and she feels that she has little in common with them. Gail watches Debbie intently for signs of unhappiness and thinks that her smiles seem forced during dinner. Max cautions her to let Debbie make her own decisions: She has chosen to go through with the wedding, and they must honor that choice.

The next morning is the day of the wedding. Debbie calls Max to say that he needs to wear something dressier for the ceremony. She offers to buy him a new suit, and Gail and Max meet Debbie at a menswear store to find an appropriate outfit. As Max tries on suits, Gail cautions Debbie about marriage’s permanence, but Debbie fires back that, as a divorced woman, Gail must know that marriage is not permanent. Again, Max urges Gail to respect Debbie’s choice. 

Later, as they get ready for the ceremony, Gail looks at herself in the mirror and feels old. She was unprepared for the aging process and wishes that she could improve her appearance. There is nothing she can do about it, however, so she does her best to remain positive during the ceremony. Much of it is a blur, as Gail tries not to cry and thinks back to her wedding and early years with Max. She thinks that the post-wedding dinner is awkward and difficult to get through, and she is happy when it is over. She and Max make their way back home.

At home, she and Max continue their conversation about Debbie and Kenneth, but this time, Max gets angry: He tells her that she, of all people, should value forgiveness in this particular situation and goes to bed in a huff. 

Gail sleeps poorly and wakes up thinking of Andrew, a man with whom she had an affair when Debbie was young. The two were co-workers who fell hard for each other. Andrew wanted her to leave Max, and she considered it. She didn’t want to break up her family, however, and when a liaison with Andrew prevented her from getting a call that Debbie had been injured at gymnastics, she ended the affair. Max found out anyway. He was angry, but after ascertaining that she didn’t plan to leave him, he dropped the matter. Gail would have liked to discuss it further, but Max refused. Their marriage returned to a kind of normalcy, but Gail could tell that Max no longer felt the same way about her. Although she understood why, she was ultimately unable to stay with him. When her father died, leaving her enough money to purchase a small house, she told Max that she wanted a divorce. The first few years after their divorce were difficult, and their relationship became acrimonious. The two had to work out how to co-parent Debbie and transition out of a romantic relationship and into a platonic one. Eventually, they settled into a routine and became friendly again.

When Max wakes up, he and Gail go on a walk together. They talk about the wedding, their lives, and aging. Max, too, feels the weight of the aging process and shares with Gail a sense of not having been prepared for the ways that bodies and relationships change as people enter old age. They spontaneously decide to have lunch together at a restaurant that Max always loved, and as the meal progresses, Gail realizes that she has less to criticize about Max than she used to. Their conversation is easy and companionable, and she is grateful for his presence. Later, they chat with Debbie on the phone, and Gail refrains from passing judgment about her decision to marry Kenneth. 

On Max’s urging, Gail speaks with her supervisor, Marilee, and finds out that she has found a new job for her: a teaching position that Gail might enjoy. Max has also found her a job teaching at his school. Her future is not so unsettled, after all. As Max gets ready to return home, Gail changes her mind: She will adopt his foster cat. The novel ends as Gail and the cat sit together contentedly, enjoying a calm moment.