What a surprise that this first novel was written with great mastery, which managed to stand out among the abundance of titles published this fall.
The plot, basically, is very simple. Two couples meet for one evening, for a meal with friends in a chic Parisian apartment. Claudia and Étienne have been together for two years; Rémi and Johar have been married for years.
In the space of these few hours, everything will change for these four characters who each have secrets to protect – secrets that none of them will be able to prevent from rising to the surface in the end. This closed session charged with tension thus becomes for the author a pretext to address the question of the place of women in the couple, professional success and origins, which she does with insight and great finesse in relation to conflicts. interiors and the shenanigans going on behind what was supposed to be just a simple dinner.
It is a short but impactful novel, which recalls both in its form and in the themes it addresses (although with less virulence) another first novel published at the beginning of the year – Assembly, by the British Natasha Brown. As this nightmarish evening unfolds, a play is seen playing out before our eyes. Like a fiasco in three acts where the costumes and masks will end up falling one by one.
A simple dinner
Calmann-Lévy
192 pages