Dinner Party

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Description

Kate has taught herself to be careful, to be meticulous. To mark the anniversary of a death in the family, she plans a dinner party - from the fancy table settings to the perfect Baked Alaska waiting in the freezer. Yet by the end of the night, old tensions have flared, the guests have fled, and Kate is spinning out of control.

But all we have is ourselves, her father once said, all we have is family.

Set between the 1990s and the present day, from a farmhouse in Carlow to Trinity College, Dublin, Dinner Party is a dark, sharply observed debut that thrillingly unravels into family secrets and tragedy. As the past catches up with the present, Kate learns why, despite everything, we can't help returning home.

Reviews

'Sarah Gilmartin is a natural writer: she gives us terrific, complex characters and strong themes, in prose that is fluent and charged with insight' - Anne Enright, Booker Prize-winning author and former Laureate for Irish Fiction

'I loved her clean, forensic writing. Gilmartin is clearly a writer to watch' - Clare Chambers, author of Women's Prize Longlisted SMALL PLEASURES

'Gilmartin writes beautifully' - Sunday Times Culture

'The search is off - here is our next read... Here is an expert writer... Taut, compelling, Enright-esque' - Meg Mason, author of SORROW AND BLISS

'Sarah Gilmartin's depiction of an Irish family across the decades leaves the reader in no doubt how complicated love can be. A brilliant debut' - John Boyne, bestselling author of THE HEART'S INVISIBLE FURIES

Author Bio

SARAH GILMARTIN is a critic who reviews fiction for the Irish Times. She is co-editor of the anthology Stinging Fly Stories and has an MFA from University College Dublin. She won Best Playwright at the inaugural Short+Sweet Dublin festival. Her short stories have been published in The Dublin Review, New Irish Writing and shortlisted for the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Award.Her story 'The Wife' won the 2020 Mairtin Crawford Award at BelfastBook Festival. Earlier this year, Sarah received a bursary for her novel-in-progress from the Arts Council of Ireland.