Novels No. 114

 

Viola Van de Sandt. The Dinner Party. USA: Little, Brown and Company/Hachette, 2025.

Franca is writing a letter, on the advice of her therapist Stella, to Harry—the unusual man who loved her and left her four years ago, despite being her best friend and potential lover. In truth, it was Franca who had rejected Harry; conventional norms overruled her and they had no further contact. Instead, she’s engaged to marry wealthy, establishment-raised Andrew. In counselling sessions, she’s trying to remember the events occurring at a troubled dinner party. Andrew and his business partner Evan were celebrating their launch of a Golden Record-type project on a space mission, also inviting Gerald who’d contributed to its literature content. Franca’s scattered mind wanders between Stella now and the past dinner preparations and arguments at the actual dinner, returning often to the image of a knife in her hand—straining to recall its meaning. What she does remember clearly is that Evan invited an old friend at the last minute: Harry. Her Harry. Awkward!

What happened with the knife seems secondary to Franca’s constant self-deprecation for doing nothing with her unsatisfying life. And what instigated the trauma at the dinner that went on and on all night. She’s distinctly not always of sound mind. As her counselling sessions continue, the dinner party re-plays to show how emotions and language heightened among Franca, Harry, and Andrew. Issues of abandonment and loneliness are evident among all five diners but there’s a much deeper, hidden scenario that no one talks about even when Evan drunkenly blurts a name as a clue.

Imagine starting to mix and bake the cake for dessert after they finish the main course. The Dinner Party is hard work at times, having answers between the lines for questions we didn’t ask. Addressing “you” often in her text, we are reminded that for the most part, Franca is speaking to Harry throughout the book letter.

Bits

▪ “These are large strides you are taking. What happened to you,” Stella shakes her head, “it’s not a small thing people can just shrug off.” (Stella, 38)

▪ I didn’t come to England to be a housewife, Andrew’s fiancée, fussing over dinner, chatting about recipes with old ladies at the supermarket. I’m trying to figure out how it happened. How I got from there to here. (42)

▪ I reach down and pull the cat loose from my belt loops and twist its neck until something snaps and the fucking thing stops wriggling. (58)

▪ Perhaps, if I’d been alone, hadn’t met Andrew, stayed in my room, stayed miserable, I would have done something. Been someone. (134)

▪ I didn’t want Andrew to think what he was obviously thinking of me, didn’t want him looking at me like this for a second longer: like I was a damaged, pitiable thing, about to have a mental breakdown. (152-3)

▪ Andrew had no right, none at all, telling everyone I’m an alcoholic. Who doesn’t fucking drink in the afternoons? (167)

▪ “Well unlike you, Fran, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being dependent on somebody else.” (Andrew, 187)

Carol Higgins Clark. Zapped. USA: Scribner/Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2008.

(Yet another desperate in-house grab) Letters again! Actress Lorraine Lily secretly installed a small safe in her Manhattan loft but while she was out of town her estranged husband Conrad sold the loft to the next-door neighbours—Jack Reilly, head of NYPD Major Cases, and his private investigator wife Regan—so they could expand their space. Renovations are already underway. In some previous therapy frenzy, Lorraine had written nasty, slanderous letters to everyone she knew in show business, never intending to mail them, of course. She’s desperate to retrieve them, stashed away in the safe, before anyone else sees them – if her loft key still works. Wally, one of the reno workmen, wants to get into that safe too; he’s already sent his pal Arthur to scout the situation. Conrad thinks Lorraine hid cash away, money he wants to claim. So three different people with assistants are plotting how to access the loft and the safe, when New York is hit with a city-wide blackout.

The plot thickens when Regan Reilly learns from her friend Kit that a deranged person called Georgina is about to drug and torture an innocent young man she picked up at a downtown club. (I know. It gets crazy.) Actually, dubious coincidences begin to appear along with a broken nose, a broken shoe, a useless bicycle, a lost stun gun, and a branding iron—all creating more than one dizzying adventure in a sweltering, darkened city. Familiarity with the streets and landmarks of Manhattan would make the action feel more meaningful or compelling, as a collection of hangers-on enlarges the search parties for Georgina and her victim. Regan and Jack’s efforts have identified him as Chip Jones.

Humorous touches in dialogue and character are fun, but the overall effect has a (perhaps unintended) cartoon-ish quality. (An OFF OF writer)

Heard

▪ “The loft was mine. It says so very clearly in the prenuptial agreement you signed two years ago.” (5)

▪ “Clay, there is also valuable jewellery in the safe. You can have it all. I just want the letters.” (41)

▪ “If I can’t crack the code,” Arthur said nervously, “I’ll break open the safe with a sledgehammer.” (58)

▪ Georgina massaged his neck and said softly, “Sitting with you on a park bench, sipping champagne, listening to your jokes—what more could a girl ask for?” (68)

▪ “But a tall, blond guy did order two margaritas at last call. I didn’t see who he was with.” (138)

▪ “You two know each other?” Alexis shrieked. (150)

▪ “Only the good die young,” Sue answered, her voice hysterical. “She kept singing that one line over and over.” (161)

▪ “I borrowed a pair of her tap shoes. They were in the bathroom.” (174)