New Day deals with the political history of Jamaica as told by a character named Campbell, who is a boy at the time of the Morant Bay Rebellion (in 1865) and an old man during its final chapters.

[2] Reid was motivated to write New Day by his discontentment with how the leaders George William Gordon and Paul Bogle of the Morant Bay Rebellion (1865) were depicted in the foreign press; by reworking as characters in his novel those who had been negatively portrayed as rebels, he aimed to refute what he viewed as unfair misrepresentations of history.

[3] The Morant Bay uprising also provided the historical backdrop for a number of works written by Reid's literary counterparts, most notably fellow Jamaican writer Roger Mais.

"[3] New Day recounts the story of Jamaica's first post-emancipation rebellion against colonial rule that cemented a stifling socio-economic and political framework three decades after the abolition of slavery.

The novel is framed as the aged narrator John Campbell's account of the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 and the series of uprisings and negotiations that finally culminates in the creation of the New Constitution in 1944.

Garth, a wealthy lawyer and businessman, is ultimately responsible for executing the series of propaganda, lawsuits, strikes, and negotiations that eventually pave the way for a new Jamaican constitution.

Reid intended for the novel to transcend language barriers and to be understood by all literary audiences who could read English, while still retaining "the beautiful rhythm of all the West Indian English-speaking people.