Elizabeth Day, The Party. Fourth Estate, London, 2018. First published 2017

Is it possible to enjoy a reasonably well put together novel about a group of singularly unpleasant characters? It should be, but there’s usually some decent soul to strike a balance, provide a moral counterpoint to reduce the nasty taste of the cads and villains.

Elizabeth Day’s The Party has as its focal point a fortieth birthday celebration for one of the most egregiously selfish, cruelly patronising of the upper-class types who populate the narrative. Ben is well connected, handsome, privileged and arrogant, and our protagonist, Martin, from a much lower social class, admires him to the point of adulation. He’s clearly in love with him, and Ben knows and exploits it.

As in Nothing But Blue Sky, which I posted about recently HERE, Martin’s been emotionally distorted by his difficult childhood. As a consequence he’s become even more lacking in affect than MacMahon’s character, David. In fact he’s a borderline psychopath, given to crushing the skulls of small creatures.

If the reader feels inclined to feel some pity for him, this is thwarted by his equally heartless treatment of his doting wife, Lucy. She idolises Martin for all the wrong reasons, mistaking his diffidence for respectful gallantry, having lost her confidence in relationships after a trauma in her earlier life.

The Party also refers to the Conservatives, the political party in which perfidious Ben is destined to play a parliamentary role – he’s a good friend of the unctuous PM, the guest of honour at his birthday bash. The novel has been likened to Highsmith and Donna Tartt, but I find it more like Alan Hollingsworth’s The Line of Beauty – but without its panache and rounded characters.

The prose is functional to the point of blandness. The shifting chronology, with alternating sections narrated by Martin and Lucy, creates a certain amount of tension and suspense, but the big secrets and reveals are set up so obviously that the suspense soon dissipates, and I very nearly gave up halfway through.

I was much more interested in some recent rural walks. Peacocks have featured in several posts this summer; recently Mrs TD and I were delighted to see this chap grazing right in front of us on the grass verge of the country lane we were walking along. To my surprise he let me get right up to him: he looked at me with a mixture of interest and disdain. Call that plumage? he seemed to be thinking as he surveyed me.

 Yesterday to the creek that has also featured here before. For once the tide was in, covering the mud, and it looked splendid in the sunshine that had finally struggled through the cloud after a week of autumnal squalls.

The martins and swallows have left for warmer climates. Schools and colleges are about to re-open, followed by universities. Let’s hope all goes well.