Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin: book review

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Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin

Overview: Kate's life has been marked by grief. First, her father passed away when she was a young teenager. Then her twin sister died at seventeen. The novel takes on the impact of the grief and her family's sensibilities on Kate from her childhood through middle age. The novel opens and closes with two anniversary dinner parties a year apart. In between, chapters take place in 1999, 2016, and 2018 to build out the full scope of Kate's life and her family. Overall: 4

Characters: 5 All of the characters feel incredibly real, deep, and believable. There's an impressive mastery in creating each character's complexity as a person as well as designating their role in the family. Everyone is much more than how they first appear on paper. I don't often mention trigger warnings in reviews anymore, but I will note that a large part of Kate's arc has to do with developing an eating disorder and an unhealthy relationship with alcohol as a coping mechanism and then having to unlearn and replace these behaviors over time. This is extremely well done, but it is a large, detailed part of the narrative. A lot of Kate's journey becomes about understanding herself better but also learning to see those around her with more dimension and an openness to the struggles that others faced that influenced their behavior towards her.

Plot: 4 Gilmartin's writing is so fantastic that I just want to stay absorbed in her worlds. The chapters are very long, which can sometimes hamper the pacing of the book, but I was deeply interested in all of the events and how they played out. This is a novel less about tension and mystery than it's about creating an evolving portrait of a family. It wasn't a book I couldn't put down, but it was one I enjoyed very much as I read it. 

Writing: 5 Gilmartin writes beautiful prose with an arresting voice. Truly one of the best writers I've encountered. I got lucky enough to stumble into her most recent book, Service, in a bookstore in Edinburgh, and I loved it so much that I looked up her back catalog. While Service is more the full package in pulling out a few shiny tricks with the POV and running a very tense plot, Dinner Party isn't to be missed. The prose is fantastic, and she creates a fully embodied world. If you're a fan of quieter family stories, this is a great read. I also give it props for being a deeply sad book that genuinely came to an uplifting note that didn't feel dishonest to the journey of the book and its characters.

More On Reading, Writing, and Me:

Brooklyn Bookstores

Jane and Dan at the End of the World

What's on my Kindle for my Flight

February 2025 Reading Journal

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