Literature has a long-standing fascination with the dinner party, a setting ripe with potential for claustrophobic drama and social dissection. From the legendary gatherings in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway to contemporary takes like Sarah Gilmartin's The Dinner Party, this scenario provides a perfect recipe for narrative tension. The latest author to master this format is Viola van de Sandt, whose formidable debut novel, The Dinner Party, delivers a chilling and visceral story that builds to a horrific climax.
A Recipe for Disaster
The novel centres on Franca, a young Dutch woman living in the UK with her English fiancé, Andrew. The core event is the dinner party she is tasked with hosting for Andrew and his two male colleagues. The circumstances are far from ideal: it is the hottest day of the year, the main course is rabbit despite Franca being a vegetarian, and her only help in the kitchen is their pet cat, which has a tendency for violence.
Van de Sandt immerses the reader in the party's atmosphere with intensely visceral prose. The description of the food is grotesque; cannellini beans are compared to 'fat maggots' and the rabbits' flesh 'glistens, seems to crawl'. The oppressive heat turns the kitchen into a scene of decay, with a dead fridge, swimming butter, and curdled milk. The ever-present knife on the counter foreshadows the violence to come.
Unpacking the Aftermath
The novel's structure is cleverly framed. It begins a year after the disastrous event, with Franca in therapy. Her therapist, Stella, has suggested she write a letter, and the entire narrative is addressed to an enigmatic figure named Harry. Through these therapy sessions and the letter, Franca's backstory is revealed.
We learn about her grief-stricken childhood in the Netherlands and her lonely student days in Utrecht, where she first met Harry and later the handsome, privileged Andrew. Convinced that her problems 'wouldn't matter if I became part of this beautiful, privileged man's life', she drops out of university and follows him to London. There, she lives a listless existence in his Kensington flat, half-heartedly applying for internships while drinking and watching The Crown.
Literary Echoes and a Bloody Climax
The novel draws comparisons to other sharp debuts like Natasha Brown's Assembly and Olivia Sudjic's Asylum Road, which also explore themes of identity and assimilation within a partner's wealthy world. However, van de Sandt chooses to keep the class politics and Franca's 'otherness' largely unexamined. Instead, the focus is on the building, nameless dread that culminates in the party's bloody climax, which Franca refers to in therapy as 'that business with the knife.'
Over the course of the evening, Franca's body is systematically tormented: viciously scratched by the cat, blistered by a dropped cigarette, and ultimately violated by a terrible act. The tension escalates relentlessly towards its gruesome conclusion. This is contrasted with the present-day narrative, where Franca, through her sessions with Stella, slowly finds a new sense of calm, focusing on the mundane pleasure of refurbishing her one-bedroom flat in Berlin.
While the juxtaposition of these two timelines can feel jarring, The Dinner Party remains a powerful and impressive debut. Van de Sandt's strength lies in her ability to create a palpable, queasy atmosphere that feels like something from a horror story. The novel offers plenty to savour for readers who enjoy psychologically intense and visceral literary fiction.
The Dinner Party by Viola van de Sandt is published by Headline (£20).
