The Party

Product Information

It’s an interesting lens through which to view how humans operate – and what’s provoked in them when it doesn’t go according to plan. Class anxiety, status anxiety, sexual anxiety, social anxiety, pregnancy anxiety, fashion anxiety, even footwear anxiety. This is where we see Martin begin making his first excuses for Ben, something he continues to do through the entire novel.

Introduce The Party by Elizabeth Day Richard and Judy Introduce The Party by Elizabeth Day

Viscerali, e forse pure un po’ morbose, tanto da pensare che l’altro sia il nostro unico faro nella nebbia.

Author and broadcaster Elizabeth Day, 42, was raised in Belfast and later became an award-winning journalist, including a nine-year stint at the Observer. Soon Martin is enjoying the high life at the Fitzmaurice family’s estate and becomes an extended family member. It’s immediately obvious that something happened at Ben’s party, and as the plot progresses the story slowly begins to unfold from four different angles; Martin’s interview with the police in the wake of the party; the night of the party itself, flash-backs to Martin and Ben’s blossoming friendship through school and university and, finally, diary entries from Martin’s wife Lucy.

The Party - Elizabeth Day - The Literary Edit Review: The Party - Elizabeth Day - The Literary Edit

Because, although I didn’t know it yet, I was about to meet Ben and nothing would ever be the same again.Boarding school boys Martin Gilmore and Ben Fitzmaurice make an unlikely twosome, Ben is confident, popular and extremely rich, Martin is the polar opposite, awkward, disliked and poor. All of this rearranging was stressful, but at the same time it made us focus on what was truly important, and that was being together.

The Party — Elizabeth Day

Seeing babies being pushed along the street in buggies caused me a stab of psychic pain,’ Elizabeth Day.Although I have to say I found the ending not very strong as compared to the rest of the story, but befitting. Struggling always as second place in Martin’s affections, after Ben, Lucy is not keen to attend the party at all and is unwilling to see the wealthy Fitzmaurice’s in the same rosy tinted glow as Martin seems to view them. The set piece party of the title is peopled with characters who are all stereotypes to a greater or lesser degree and who add nothing to the storyline.