Dinner Party, Sarah Gilmartin
“They were all strange, troubled individuals but beside each other, they were very clearly a family. You could not call it anything else.”
Gilmartin’s astute debut follows the passing of time through the lens of a Irish family who have experienced multiple traumas over the course of their lives.
Opening in Dublin in 2018, three siblings gather together to mark 16 years since the death of their sister, Elaine. The reader is given access into the fluctuating family dynamics through Kate, Elaine’s twin sister. Kate, who suffers from an eating disorder, chooses to throw a meticulously planned dinner party for the occasion, in the first of many scenes which dissect and explore an evolving family portrait. Punctuated by a series of dinners, the lives of this family are sketched out in vignettes that move forwards and backwards in time – both before and after Elaine’s tragic death.
Although there is a certain drama within the family, Dinner Party is a quiet novel that will be all too relatable to many. It would be too easy to characterise this family as simply dysfunctional – instead, Gilmartin’s debut presents a realistic portrayal of a group of flawed individuals who are inescapably joined together while tearing themselves apart.
Review featured in the Family issue
