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Sometime around the 1980s, I recall reading one of my father's 'mass market paperback' science fiction novels. The book was showing its age even then, so it's likely to have come from the 60s or 70s.

The basic idea of the story was that rich people had a ways of saving time not available to the 'great unwashed', and the saved time could be saved, in a 'bank'. When sufficient saved time was accumulated, the saver could have an extra day, which was conventionally taken between Saturday and Sunday. When the saver 'took' the day, it seemed to be in a world/universe/'phase-of-existance'/somethingorother which was just like the Real World, except that only the people 'taking the day' were there.

The story centered around someone who somehow managed to convince one of the rich people that he was one of them, for social reasons, and he learned about this time-banking scheme during the course of the story, and somehow made it public.

Jeff Zeitlin
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1 Answers1

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This is the 1973 novel "Where were you last Pluterday?" by Paul van Herck

The wikipedia description seems to fit quite nicely

The theme in the book is Pluterday, an extra day in the week which can be withdrawn if one saves enough time (e.g. by taking a plane instead of a train). Only the rich can save enough time and thus Pluterday is in practice reserved for the "happy few", resulting in a class society. The existence of Pluterdays is kept secret to non-privileged people.

Valorum
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    Surprised this hasn't been turned into a movie yet. – DisturbedNeo Apr 05 '17 at 15:34
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    @DisturbedNeo - The plot reminded me of a mixture of "In Time" and "The Adjustment Bureau". – Valorum Apr 05 '17 at 15:41
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    In Time was exactly what I was thinking about when I commented. – DisturbedNeo Apr 05 '17 at 16:07
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    Direct hit, Valorum - as soon as I saw "Pluterday" in the title, it rang a bell VERY LOUDLY. Did a bit of googling, and this image matches the cover I recall. – Jeff Zeitlin Apr 05 '17 at 16:37
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    Fun fact: ploutos originally (in pre-history) meant "flowing" -- English words like flow, fly, and fleet (in the sense of "quick") descend from it -- but evolved to mean "rich" some 5000 years ago. The words plutocracy and plutocrat survive from that period. Hades, the god of the Underworld, was also called Pluto, since all the wealth of the Earth belonged to him. "Pluterday" is a translation of "Plutertag", rich-day, a coinage of the author, so far as I know. – Michael Lorton Apr 05 '17 at 17:04
  • @Malvolio The name makes sense, as it was a day only available to the wealthy :) – Doktor J Apr 06 '17 at 14:35
  • Interestingly, the Dutch original seems to be very hard to find (six copies in Belgian libraries, none in Dutch libraries, none in online bookstores new or secondhand), but the seven translations are all easy to find and in German there are even ebooks available. – gerrit May 03 '19 at 13:17
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    @gerrit - Probably they're only available from libraries on alternate Pluterdays. – Valorum May 03 '19 at 13:18