Herman Koch, born in 1953, is a Dutch writer. He was a
renowned television actor on the series Jiskefet and a former
columnist for the newspaper Volkskrant. The Dinner is his sixth
novel and has already won the prestigious Publieksprijs Prize in
2009. Herman Koch currently lives in Amsterdam.
Sam Garrett has translated some 30 novels and works of
non-fiction, for which he has won prizes and appeared on shortlists
for some of the world's most prestigious literary awards.
Smart, shocking and unputdownable
*Gillian Flynn, no.1 bestselling author of Gone Girl*
Deliciously dark... An essential summer read
*Independent*
Gripping... The talking point of the summer
*Sunday Times*
A feast of a novel... Spine-chillingly brilliant
*Evening Standard*
A brilliantly addictive novel that wraps its hands around your
throat on page one and doesn't let go
*SJ Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep*
Shivers kept shooting up my backbone as I became engrossed in
Koch's darkly disturbing tale of family life... As the dinner
disintegrates into mayhem, we discover just how far the middle
classes will go to protect their monstrous offspring
*Daily Mail*
This chilling novel starts out as a witty look at contemporary manners in the style of Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage before turning into a take-no-prisoners psychological thriller. The Lohman brothers, unemployed teacher Paul and politician Serge, a candidate for prime minister, meet at an expensive Amsterdam restaurant, along with their respective spouses, Claire and Babette, to discuss a situation involving their respective 15-year-old sons, Michel and Rick. At first, the two couples discuss such pleasantries as wine and the new Woody Allen film. But during this five-course dinner, from aperitif to digestif, secrets come out that threaten relations between the two families. To say much more would spoil the breathtaking twists and turns of the plot, which slowly strips away layers of civility to expose the primal depths of supposedly model citizens, not to mention one character's past history of mental illness and violence. With dark humor, Koch dramatizes the lengths to which people will go to preserve a comfortable way of life. Despite a few too-convenient contrivances, this is a cunningly crafted thriller that will never allow you to look at a serviette in the same way again. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Originally published in 2009, this best-selling Dutch novel is now available in English so the world can indulge in the dark comedy of award-winning author Koch (Save Us, Maria Montanelli). At an upscale restaurant in the Netherlands, two couples have dinner and a much-needed conversation about their sons. Koch employs the narrative frame of a menu (aperitif, appetizer) to slowly unveil how these couples know each other and the rippling effect their children's actions have caused. By the time dessert is served, the reader knows that the two men are brothers, and the narrative takes on Tolstoyan overtones, with each unhappy family unhappy in its own way. In a single setting, Koch successfully deploys multiple narratives of a single event to effectively show that our construction of history, and constant attempts at overdetermining the future, is problematic. VERDICT A shocking, humorous, and entertaining novel that effectively uses a misanthropic narrator in leading us through a fancy dinner, with morally savage undertones. Recommend for fans of Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage and Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap. [See Prepub Alert, 8/27/12.]-Joshua Finnell, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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