
The Dinner
Herman Koch(Author)
Atlantic Books (Publisher)
Published on 1. August 2012
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-84887-382-7 (ISBN)
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Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
An essential summer read * Independent Magazine * The talking point of the summer * Sunday Times * I'm confidently predicting that The Dinner will become this summer's literary talk of the town... Order yours now -- Melanie McGrath * 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 -- Arifa Akbar * 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 -- Val Hennessy * Daily Mail * The perfect undemanding, credible, terrifying beach read * Financial Times * Proves how powerful fiction can be in illuminating the modern world... The best beach read of the season * Economist *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 209 mm
Width: 148 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
372 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84887-382-7 (9781848873827)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
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E-Book
08/2012
Atlantic Books
€9.99
Available for download
Persons
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.