The Dinner - Softcover

Herman Koch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848873824 ISBN 13: 9781848873827

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2012

Synopsis

A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the delicate scraping of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of politeness - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But the empty words hide a terrible conflict and, with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened...

Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. Together, the boys have committed a horrifying act, caught on camera, and their grainy images have been beamed into living rooms across the nation; despite a police manhunt, the boys remain unidentified - by everyone except their parents. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children and, as civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

About this title

Review:

An essential summer read Source: Independent Magazine

The talking point of the summer Source: Sunday Times

I'm confidently predicting that The Dinner will become this summer's literary talk of the town... Order yours now Author: Melanie McGrath Source: Evening Standard

Rather like The Slap it is set to become a contentious must-read. It may thrill, chill or cheat, but it is undeniably riveting Author: Arifa Akbar Source: Independent

Shivers kept shooting up my backbone as I became engrossed in Koch's darkly disturbing tale of family life... As the dinner disintegrates into mayhem, we discover just how far the middle classes will go to protect their monstrous offspring Author: Val Hennessy Source: Daily Mail

The perfect undemanding, credible, terrifying beach read Source: Financial Times

Proves how powerful fiction can be in illuminating the modern world... The best beach read of the season Source: Economist

From the Author:

Herman Koch, born in 1953, is a Dutch writer. He was a renowned television actor on the series Jiskefet and a former columnist for the newspaper Volkskrant. The Dinner is his sixth novel and has already won the prestigious Publieksprijs Prize in 2009. Herman Koch currently lives in Amsterdam.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1848873824
• ISBN 13: 9781848873827
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352