"The First Day" by Marc Levy, summary

The novel "The First Day" was published in 2009. This book is a thrilling story at the intersection of astrophysics and paleontology, dedicated to the search for the origins of the universe and the origins of the human race. It opens Marc Levy’s two-part series, which is continued by the novel "First Night" (2009).

Returning from expeditions and student love

French paleoanthropologist Keira is excavating in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. She dreams of finding the remains of the earliest human ancestors. An unexpected sandstorm destroys the camp. Keira is forced to abandon the excavation and return to Paris. She takes with her a gift from the orphan Harry — a smooth, dark, triangular stone the boy found in the crater of an extinct volcano on Lake Turkana.

British astrophysicist Adrian returns to London from a high-altitude observatory in the Chilean Atacama Plateau due to a bout of altitude sickness. His colleague Walter persuades him to apply for the Walsh Foundation’s £2 million science competition to secure funding for further space exploration.

In Paris, Keira meets an elderly scientist named Ivory from the Quai Branly Museum. The professor expresses a strange interest in the pendant. Laboratory tests fail to determine the age or composition of the object. Ivory secretly contacts a secret international committee aware of the existence of such relics. Keira’s sister, Jeanne, secretly submits her dissertation to the same competition in London.

At a London project defense, Adrien and Keira split the award. They recognize each other in the elevator. Fifteen years ago, they had a brief student romance. They spend the night together, chatting, but at dawn, Keira leaves, leaving a mysterious pendant on her bedside table.

The Mystery of the Pendant and the Ancient Starry Sky

Adrienne goes on vacation to visit her mother on the Greek island of Hydra. Walter also arrives. During a thunderstorm, a powerful flash of lightning passes through the pendant, projecting a multitude of flickering dots onto the wall of the room.

The friends travel to Crete to examine the object using the institute’s powerful laser. The laser beam creates a scattering of stars on the wall. The local director attempts to take the pendant by force, but Walter knocks him and the guard out. The fugitives return to Hydra with the help of elderly pilot Sofia Schwartz.

Adrien sends the photographs to his colleague Eruen in Chile. He calculates the projection parameters: the pendant depicts the Pelican Nebula in the constellation Cygnus, as seen from Earth four hundred million years ago. In London, Ivory approaches Adrien, hinting at the existence of another similar object and providing the coordinates of Keira’s camp.

The Tragedy at Lake Turkana and the Frankfurt Manuscript

Adrien flies to Ethiopia and finds Keira. Together with a Mursi elder, they travel to Central Island in the middle of Lake Turkana to record the precise coordinates of the first discovery. At the top of the crater, Adrien records the geographic parameters.

Returning to the car, the heroes discover the elder murdered. They were being followed by agents of a secret committee. Enraged tribesmen pelt the SUV with spears, accusing the Europeans of causing the chieftain’s death. Keira and Adrien are forced to flee the Omo Valley.

Adrienne convinces his companion to continue their search. Recalling the ancient Nebra disk, they travel to Germany. A local museum curator tells them about a rare Ge’ez manuscript kept in Frankfurt. That night in Nebra, an unknown assailant attempts to run over the scientists with a car, and a burglar smashes their hotel room.

In Frankfurt, the heroes obtain a copy of an ancient text about the division of the sacred disk into pieces hidden beneath tall pillars. They head to Paris, where Keira’s former lover, Max, helps decipher the manuscript.

Assassination attempt in London and the ascent of Mount Huashan

Walter finds an Ethiopian priest-philosopher in London for a final interpretation of the manuscript. The priest warns of the dangers of awakening ancient knowledge. At that moment, a sniper kills the elder with a shot through a stained-glass window. Before dying, the priest whispers of hidden pyramids.

Adrien and Keira flee. In the Academy library, Keira discovers that the hidden earthen pyramids are located in China near the Kunlun Mountains. The scientists fly to Beijing.

On the way to Xi’an, they remove the bug planted in their bag and pick up an elderly Buddhist monk. He invites them to his monastery and points out the sacred, pointed Mount Huashan — the White Pyramid.

The heroes make a perilous climb up sheer cliffs and rickety bridges over a chasm. At the summit, near an ancient temple, they find a stone sculpture of a lion holding its paw on a stone sphere. Covering the sphere with soot from the coals, they reveal a carved armillary sphere with celestial coordinates.

The Second Narcondam Island Artifact and the Yellow River Disaster

Adrien’s colleagues recalculate the sphere’s coordinates, adjusting for precession over three and a half thousand years. The dot points to the crater of an extinct volcano on the uninhabited island of Narcondam in the Andaman Sea.

Having hired a pilot to fly a cargo plane, the explorers fly through Burma to Port Blair. They land on Narcondam on a rented boat. In the volcano’s crater, Keira excavates a second triangular dark stone.

As they approach, the artifacts are attracted to each other and merge into a single whole. The stones turn blue and project a star map with a bright star at the center — the star of the first day.

The scientists return to China. On a mountain road near the Yellow River, their SUV is rammed at high speed by a pursuer. The car plunges off a cliff and plunges to the riverbed. Keira is pinned under the deformed seat. Adrien confesses his love to her, gives her his last breath of air, and loses consciousness in the icy water.

Hope for salvation and the way to China

Adrien regained consciousness in a hospital in Xi’an five days later. Rescuers pulled him from the bottom, but Keira’s body was missing from the car.

The grief-stricken scientist returns to his mother on Hydra Island. Three months later, Walter arrives with a package from China containing personal belongings and developed films. One of the photographs depicts a living Keira with a healed scar on her forehead.

Walter delivers a letter from Professor Ivory. The old man reports that Keira and Adrien were rescued by local monks who were ablutions in the river. Ivory urges the astrophysicist not to give up and to find the remaining fragments of the star map for the greater good. Adrien immediately takes a plane ticket and heads back to China.