An uncomfortable pleasure to read ... There are small missteps — a long scene featuring a pot-laced brownie, Kate's perhaps overly quick improvement. But these are quibbles. Gilmartin's dialogue sparkles, and her understanding of family dynamics is sharp. Dinner Party is a smooth read, a true feast of dysfunction.
Observant ... It’s a sorrowful work, alert to the nuances of family life – the terrifying volatility and the stubborn loyalties – that make it such a crucible for drama ... Sarah Gilmartin wrangles these time frames and locations deftly enough, but she dangles the mystery of Elaine’s death so early and often in the novel that, at times, it feels like a visible device, clumsily prodding us to read on ... Gilmartin is at her best, though, in the set pieces that lay bare the dynamics of family life, from the bitterly rowing parents to the slow estrangement of siblings ... A novel about a monstrous mother and dysfunctional siblings may not seem to cover new literary ground, but Gilmartin is as interested in what keeps the family together as what tears it apart.
Sarah Gilmartin writes well and with lightness of touch about the half-light of Dublin winters in a small apartment, the interaction of street life with domesticity ... The novel interweaves three timelines and locations with aplomb, paying particular and convincing attention to the domestic geographies of childhood.
A clunky plot device, one that exposes Gilmartin’s newness to the novel form. But put that aside and the tapestry she goes on to weave, one of a family battered by tragedies, is rich and vibrant ... Gilmartin writes beautifully about being and losing a twin ... Tragedies, Gilmartin seems to say, are not sealed-off stories — they happen all the time, and are mixed in with laughter too.
Kate is a gentle, empathetic character, the contours of her interior life delicately navigated by Gilmartin in the close third person. And it is through Kate’s sensitivity that the other family members are prevented from becoming the stock portraits they might otherwise have been ... But these nuances of character are not a strong enough adhesive to hold the novel together. Each distinct time period is explored in a single, long chapter, and separate chapters are devoted to the several dinner parties commemorating Elaine’s death, to Kate’s life at university, to her relationship with a married man. And, rather than functioning like separate gears all working together, each of the chapters feels isolated, inert.
