Franca left the Netherlands behind to start her new life in England with Andrew. Andrew, whose parents lived in South Kensington but had a flat their son could 'borrow' nearby. Andrew, an old-fashioned British gentleman who encourages her not to work but to instead focus on her writing. Andrew who suggests a dinner party with his colleagues to celebrate their big upcoming launch. A dinner party that Franca must plan and shop and cook and clean for. A dinner party during a heatwave when the fridge breaks, alcohol replaces water, and an unexpected guest joins their ranks, upending the careful balance between everything Franca once was and now is.
Powerful ... The subtle clues are there, and this is where van de Sandt’s book shines ... The casual sexism embedded in Andrew’s manner of speaking to her is slyly grotesque and altogether too real ... Threaded throughout the evening’s dinner-table conversation is a rather conventional argument about the white male heteronormative canon of Western literature, which seems a bit on the nose given the book’s themes and, yes, a bit trite ... [The] two devices don’t serve the story as well as they should. As it turns out, hearing about someone’s therapy sessions is a little like being told about their dreams. What seems unique and fascinating in the unbridled private space of our minds doesn’t quite translate as such ... It’s not that Franca’s story isn’t interesting, it’s the way we learn about it that’s a bit stilted ... The layers that van de Sandt often puts between Franca’s visceral tale of abuse and the recounting of it at times dull its impact ... But these narrative choices do not defuse the raw emotion and legitimate anger at the core of The Dinner Party. Van de Sandt’s exploration of the countless ways women diminish themselves so that the men in the room can take up space remains urgent, and Franca’s story, terrifyingly real.
Makes for uneasy reading ... As the narrative plays out, it becomes clear that the climax the novel is chugging towards in fact came much earlier, and a distasteful but downplayed scene soon balloons into a traumatic event ... A distinct debut, unafraid to question the nature of desire, and van de Sandt’s portrayal of the unfolding of trauma is thoughtful, true to life and well woven into the novel’s structure.
There are echoes here of Natasha Brown’s astonishing debut Assembly ... That said, the class politics are never really interrogated, while Franca’s 'otherness' is barely remarked upon ... If the themes and characterisations are slightly muted...the novel is much bolder in its repeated references to the dinner party’s climax ... The party itself is described in intensely visceral prose ... It is here that Van de Sandt is at her strongest, the queasy smells, unctuous textures and 'nameless dread' like something from a horror story ... The tension builds and builds to its bloody climax ... The combination is sometimes jarring, like two different recipes spliced together, but this formidable debut offers plenty to savour.
