Friday, November 22, 1963, in Escondido, California, begins with the discovery of an infant in the adoption basket at the local animal pound. This calculated effort to shock the natives is silenced by the news from Dallas of an event calculated to shock the world. One Day is concerned with the way these two events are related and with the time that begins when conventional time seems to have stopped. The events of this day, both comical and horrifying, make the commonplace seem strange, and the strange familiar. To accommodate the present, the past must be reshuffled, and events accounted for defy accounting.