The Party

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The admirable energy (and anger) of the writing too often curdles into sneering and this, in turn, creates a constrictive claustrophobia that stops the book reaching for something more resonant – about unrequited gay male love, perhaps, or undead marriages, or even human monstrosity. I sometimes had the sense of the prose asphyxiating itself. Sure, people are awful, but “nothing is simply one thing”, as Virginia Woolf has it, not even the bad guys. And if so, why dramatise them? Lucy is a devoted wife to Martin, even as she knows she'll always be second best to his sacred friendship. When Ben throws a lavish 40th birthday party as his new palatial country home, Martin and Lucy attend, mixing with the very upper echelons of London society. Martin Gilmour and Ben Fitzmaurice have been best friends for 25 years, since their days together at Burtonbury School. And as much as I detest jet lag, and detest it I very much do, there’s something about waking up in the (very) early hours of the morning, while all is still silent and dark, that offers the perfect sort of reading conditions in which to finish a book, thus enabling me to finish Elizabeth Day’s fourth book in two short and swift sittings. As well as the relationship between Martin and Ben, we also hear of how Martin met his wife, Lucy. Although Lucy appears plain when presented next to the stunning Serena, for me she was the most interesting character in the novel. 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. Lastly, of course, gradually we learn what actually happened on the night of the party and of the consequences of those events.

The author touches on a gamut of topics including obsession, loyalty, power, and class distinctions. The story is darkly humorous at times, with sharp satirical tones. A nonfiction book about friendship. During the pandemic, I think so many people underwent a reassessment of friendship and what it means to them. I want to look at that through the lens of a few specific friendships in my own life.

Yet, it is clear Martin values his friendship with Ben a great deal, with a pathetic sort of hero worship or neediness, that he doesn’t seem to have nor require from his wife. Viscerali, e forse pure un po’ morbose, tanto da pensare che l’altro sia il nostro unico faro nella nebbia. Lucy - Martin's wife, is who I actually would have been more interested in hearing from. We do get her perspective but she seemed the more interesting character, and the one it would have been easier to sympathise with. 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. Elizabeth Day se las arregla de maravilla para construir toda esta historia en torno a una amistad desde la adolescencia y al mismo tiempo es una reflexión sobre el arribísmo, las diferencias de clases, la hipocresia y la identidad personal. Desde el momento en que Ben llega a la vida de Martin, éste se obsesiona no solo con Ben sino con formar parte de su mundo, de sus relaciones sociales: no se conforma con el mundo del que viene sino que prácticamente lo olvida para convertirse en la sombra de Ben Fitzmaurice.

Todo gira en torno a 3 personas, dos hombres que son amigos desde la infancia, pero que provienen de clases sociales totalmente opuestas, uno es un vástago de la aristocracia, Ben, y otro proveniente de una familia muy humilde, Martin, que ha ido sobreviviendo como ha podido, gracias a su valía en los estudios, ayudas de distintos tipos.... el triángulo se completa con la mujer de Martin, Lucy.Martin - the protagonist was interesting in his slightly creepy devotion, but it would have been nice to get a clear sense of where his motives where coming from. Hints were made one way but reveals went another, and ultimately I couldn't make up my mind about him. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Yes, by World Productions, which makes the little-known Line of Duty. It’s exciting but I’m also hyper-aware that TV is a long, slow process. I’m also in the process of hopefully adapting How to Fail, the memoir, for Sky. Our failure as children (and it is an understandable one) is to imagine our parents exist only for us, when actually they have whole interior and exterior lives that do not permanently rotate around whether or not we want fish-fingers or cheese toasties for supper.” Martin Gilmour proviene de un entorno desfavorecido, pero gracias a su amistad con Ben Fitzmaurice tiene un pie dentro de un mundo donde el dinero y el poder ancestrales fluyen entre familias con apellidos sonoros. Martin queda hechizado por Ben y su entorno, y confiesa: