The Dinner

A Novel

By: Herman Koch, Sam Garrett - translator

Narrated by: Clive Mantle

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The darkly suspenseful tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives—all over the course of one meal. Now a major motion picture.

“Chilling, nasty, smart, shocking, and unputdownable.”—Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl

It’s a summer’s evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse—the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act—an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families.

As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

©2009 Herman Koch; Translation © 2012 by Sam Garrett (P)2013 AudioGO

One of the best, most consistent, most powerful re

Would you listen to The Dinner again? Why?

I listened to it twice in a row. Such a fascinating, perverted, upside down story. And Mr. Mantle was perfection itself in characterizing the narrator of the story - breezy, disconnected, sure, and clueless all at the same time.

Obsessed, loved it! Go in Blind....

What did you love best about The Dinner?

I did NOT read the summary or any descriptions about the plot in advance, just listened to the book so had NO idea about where the story was taking me which made it an awesome, shocking and gripping adventure. I think the narrator did an amazing job, not sure if he is the reason, or the book itself is the reason it is by far my favorite listen so far.

What does Clive Mantle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He IS the character, amazing work and talent!!!

If you could take any character from The Dinner out to dinner, who would it be and why?

None for me thanks!

Slow moving but worth the wait!

I do not want to spoil the unique quality of this book by revealing anything about the plot . Reader, hang in there through the first few chapters and you will be rewarded! The Dutch are different.

Creepy!

Starts slow, but you gradually get suspicious of the first-person narrator and his "happy family".... The creepy level builds and builds, and you wonder if these folks could be living next door.

Didn't expect it to end the way it did

I did not expect the book to end the way it did. Actually felt a bit disappointed. I was pulled in fully towards the end but was left with a feeling of longing for more.

Wicked and disturbing!

Any additional comments?

The Dinner is a dark family drama that escalates into a psychological horror story. You are not going to like these people, but you will be fascinated by them, the same way we can't turn away from a horrible car wreck with mangled bodies strewn all over the road. You know it's going to be gruesome, but you can't look away.

The setting is a very posh, exclusive restaurant, the kind with gloved waiters and 3-month waiting lists. The story unfolds during each of the dinner's five courses. Two couples, middle-aged brothers and their wives, dine together to discuss a harrowing secret involving their teenage sons.

Each new dish is served with menacing new secrets about each character and insight into their twisted relationships with each other. As the meal progresses, your perception of each character evolves dramatically.

This story starts out with slow momentum but please stick with it, it builds with tremendous force right up until the shocking end. Don't miss this one, it will make the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up!

Excellent performance of this book

I was captivated by this story and the audio performance was exceptionally good. A dark story that unfolds amazingly well.

For a thinking audience

If I were the main characters, I would not have chosen to discuss their problem over dinner in a public restaurant! Who do you care about enough to put all of your values aside to "save" them? What does that say about what your values really are? Maybe this book is a disturbing peek under the blanket of our middle class hypocrisy. Or maybe it is about something else altogether.

Drones on just a bit in places, but overall a very thought-provoking read.

screwed up but great

Terrible people doing terrible things. I got through it pretty fast and enjoyed the narrator

So funny I barely noticed the cliff

I think I missed the meeting when my book club chose this book, so I had absolutely no idea what it was about when I downloaded it into my phone and began to listen. Within a few sentences, I found myself laughing out loud. I don’t know if a person reading the book would get as much of the snarky humor inherent in this book (particularly the beginning) but it definitely comes across in the audio version as expertly brought alive by Clive Mantle. Just the way Mantle pronounces “Serrrrrrge” with a heavy, sardonic emphasis on the “r” made me laugh every time. And don’t get me started on the scene in the men’s room—hysterical!

The beginning chapters are a bitingly droll commentary on upper middle class life in the early 21st century. I absolutely howled with laughter at the descriptions of the pretentious restaurant, the self-important maître d’ (and his pinky!) and the ostentatiously named food. Side trips into the protagonist’s memories were also—at first—amusing, particularly the passage about the garden party.

Which brings me to another thing I loved about this book: the way the author described things. Like the woman at the garden party with a “voice like the sweetener in Diet Coke.” I also really liked it when the author described something and then wrote something along the lines of “well, no . . . it wasn’t exactly like that . . . it was more like . . .” and then went on to give a fantastic simile that left no doubt what he had in mind. In chapter 15 he gives three different descriptions of Serge’s face, each one more telling than the last: “like a new car that got its first scratch,” “like a cartoon whose chair has been kicked out from under him,” and finally “if he wore that face asking people to vote for him, no one would give him a second look.”

There is much, much more to this book, and once the action starts to heat up the comedy is replaced by a chilling look behind the scenes of these “normal” lives. Societal issues including racism, homelessness, parenting, violence and morality are presented as I have seldom encountered them before in a novel. The end . . . well, I don’t want to give anything away, but it was sort of like in the Road Runner when the coyote realizes the cliff has dropped out from under him. A great listen!