The party is where it all unravels and where the dark secret between rich, aristocratic Ben and poor, middle-class Martin is exposed. We are kept very much in the dark about the secret until nearly the end of the book. The story is set in different time zones and locations. We start with Martin being questioned by the police just after the party. We flick to school and university days. We come back to Martin’s wife Lucy’s diary she is told to keep in the psychiatric unit. We move to the party itself and so on as the mystery builds and the two young lives are mapped out. Martin plots his way into Ben’s life with care until the perfect opportunity arrives and Ben is suddenly very much in Martin’s debt. So the friendship builds throughout their young lives, careers and wives, they are ‘best friends’ until suddenly they are not. The message is very much “If you’re lucky enough to be born ‘into it’ you are made, if you are not then you are wasting your life trying to break in”. This is dark stuff. All the way through doom hangs over the pages. Will Martin get his revenge? In an elegant read you’ll be hooked finding out. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
July 2017 Book of the Month.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR
A gripping story of betrayal, privilege and hypocrisy, set in the unassailable heart of the British establishment.
'A terrifying, hilarious, brilliantly written original with a wit to die for' Phoebe Waller-Bridge
'As the train pressed on, I realised that my life was in the process of taking a different direction, plotted according to a new constellation. Because, although I didn't know it yet, I was about to meet Ben and nothing would ever be the same again.'
Martin Gilmour is an outsider. When he wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School, he doesn't wear the right clothes or speak with the right kind of accent. But then he meets the dazzling, popular and wealthy Ben Fitzmaurice, and gains admission to an exclusive world. Soon Martin is enjoying tennis parties and Easter egg hunts at the Fitzmaurice family's estate, as Ben becomes the brother he never had.
But Martin has a secret. He knows something about Ben, something he will never tell. It is a secret that will bind the two of them together for the best part of 25 years.
At Ben's 40th birthday party, the great and the good of British society are gathering to celebrate in a haze of champagne, drugs and glamour. Amid the hundreds of guests - the politicians, the celebrities, the old-money and newly rich - Martin once again feels that disturbing pang of not-quite belonging. His wife, Lucy, has her reservations too. There is disquiet in the air. But Ben wouldn't do anything to damage their friendship.
Would he?
'The twists and turns that the novel takes are never predictable and the novel becomes as unsettling as it is involving. One of those books that a person reads in one day because you absolutely have to know how it turns out' John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
The Party features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Family Drama, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
The Party is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Party was written by Elizabeth Day and published by 4th Estate an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
The Party has 294 pages
£8.99
