The Dinner

Translated by Sam Garrett

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 overpriced and pretentious, the head waiter will bore on 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.

And it’s about how far two sets of parents will go to save their children from the consequences of their actions.