The Dinner: A Novel Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00B3Z69PQ | Format: PDF
The Dinner: A Novel Description
It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse - the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a 15-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families.
As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.
Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 55 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: AudioGO
- Audible.com Release Date: February 13, 2013
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00B3Z69PQ
I have both positive and negative things to say about this book.
First, the plot: The story is of two brothers - one an unemployed former high school teacher who suffers from a vague illness that causes him to be sometimes unable to control his violent impulses, the other a boorish but popular politician who might be on his way to becoming the Prime Minister - who have teenage sons who have gotten into some Clockwork Orange-like nastiness. The boys have not yet been caught by the authorities in their criminal deeds, but their parents know what they have been up to, and the two brothers and their respective wives are meeting at a restaurant to discuss the dilemma over dinner.
Now, the positives: the bad deeds the boys engage in are as random and senseless as they are brutal and severe. And the boys themselves are not the kind of kids you'd expect to engage in such activities. I found all of that completely believable and compelling, and it hit me on a personal level because I was once a teenage boy who was basically a "good kid" but who sometimes gave way to impulses a boy of that age can have, and got into some vandalism-involved nastiness that I'm still sorry for to this day. The bad things the boys do are both horrifying and believable and that makes the story gripping. Something else I liked about the book, and that also touches me personally, is the explorations of various aspects of parenting. Through the story, you get glimpses of the complexities involved in a parent's relationship to their child as it is affected by the relationship the kid has with one's spouse, its other parent, and how the relationships between the three are so intertwined. This is handled most effectively in the book.
I read a review copy that came stuffed with publicity material, so perhaps my expectations were too high.
The suspense depends on the deliberate withholding of information (a common enough contrivance in this genre), with each chapter carefully delivering a small new dose of revelation. But the game quickly became too mechanical for me, and I found myself skimming impatiently -- so apologies if I missed something.
Here are a few things that ultimately bothered me. (SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!)
This criticism, I notice, has been voiced already, but it's pretty fundamental: The narrator's brother is supposed to be a famous Dutch politician who's just about to run for -- what is it, president, premier, prime minister... whatever. He's a national celebrity. (In fact, during the dinner a man and his daughter come up to him, complete strangers, and ask to take a photo.) And the purpose of the dinner, we learn, is so that the politician and his wife, and the narrator and HIS wife, can come clean with one another and discuss what to do about the fact that their respective teenage sons are homicidal psychopaths currently wanted for a murder that has shocked all Europe.
Now, you'd think the last place the politician would want this crucial (and shady) meeting to be held would be at a crowded high-priced high-end restaurant with every other patron eyeing the foursome, waiters in attendance, etc. What an unlikely choice! And then, peculiarly, the subject of the sons and their crime doesn't even come up till late in the dinner; before that it's basically small talk.
The Dinner: A Novel Preview
Link
Please Wait...