The Dinner

Now a major motion picture starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall and Chloë Sevigny.


Paul Lohman and his wife Claire are going out to dinner with Paul's brother Serge, a charismatic and ambitious politician, and his wife Babette. Paul knows the evening will not be fun. The restaurant will be over-priced and pretentious, the head waiter will bore them about the organically certified free-range this and artisan-fed that, and almost everything about Serge, especially his success, will infuriate Paul.


But as the evening wears on it becomes clear that tonight's dinner will be even more difficult than usual. There is something the two couples have to discuss. It's about their teenage sons and the very bad things they have been doing.


Herman Koch is a successful actor, screenwriter and columnist in the Netherlands, and has written a number of satirical novels including The Dinner and Summerhouse with Swimming Pool.


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‘Funny, provocative and exceedingly dark, this is a brilliantly addictive novel tat wraps its hands around your throat on page one and doesn’t let go.’ S.J Watson


‘What a tremendous book. I loved every single gripping and strange thing about it.’ M.J. Hyland


‘Are family values good? The Dinner will have you wondering. At first it seems like A Year In Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun with a bit of an edge, the good life meets the examined life. But by the end, when all has become truly chilling, you’ll have to rethink everything, including who you are and what you believe. This is a book you won’t forget.’ David Vann


‘Herman Koch’s The Dinner is a riveting, compelling and a deliciously uncomfortable read. Like all great satire it is both lacerating and so very funny. The Dinner got under my skin and punctured all my safe liberal smugness and pieties. Intelligent and complex, this novel is both a punch to the guts and also a tonic. It clears the air. A wonderful book.’ Christos Tsiolkas


‘The novel develops into a breathtaking thriller in which no-one is innocent. Koch holds the reader is his grip.’ Niccolò Ammaniti

‘In this exploration of how two families deal with an explosive event, The Dinner is reminiscent of Christos Tsiolkas’s blockbuster The Slap.’ Stephen Romei


'Koch has a lot of fun tormenting these smugly bourgeois liberal types, testing the limits of their social values for our entertainment. The result is unsettling and bound to generate heated discussion around many dinner tables for those with a taste for vinegary dishes.' Booktopia BUZZ


'What a wonderfully awkward, slow-burning, page-turning novel it turned out to be.' Melbourne Weekly


'Like Tsiolkas' hit The Slap, it's an ideal book club kind of read, with fantastically divisive characters, a relatable setting and a heavy dose of "would you or wouldn't you?" dilemma. Expect to see a movie adaption in a cinema near you.' Melbourne Weekly


'This is a dark and disturbing novel. It is extremely well written and well crafted.' Dominion Post


'As much as The Dinner is a suspenseful story about teenage cousins Michel and Rick, it is equally the rich portrayal of the characters and their individual views that pin the reader to the page.' Courier Mail