Supper Club by Lara Williams

Supper Club by Lara Williams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up at random, knowing very little about it, but intrigued, somehow, by the notion of a novel that centres on people taking up space when space is denied to them. The titular Supper Club is a gathering of women who are done with (gestures at everything) and want to matter, to grow, to fill themselves with what they’re lacking. The novel is narrated by Roberta who is messy, smart, clever and deeply, deeply, adrift in a world that is nothing but hostile towards people like her. I loved this. I knew within minutes that I was reading something interesting and that I liked it and that I liked the rawness of it and I liked the wildness of it and I liked the anger of it. I liked it a lot.

I keep returning to that idea of taking up space, of bodies which fill and grow and become something other, of deliberately finding and making a space where such things can happen, because we are so often asked to make ourselves small. To lack, to absent, to disappear. There were moments when I felt this was about to slide into something more dangerous and I think I would have welcomed that because it’s interesting, particularly for people like this, to explore such spaces, so I did miss that. Some of it does also feel a little bit fey, a little bit self-conscious, but then we are all a bit fey, we are all a little bit self-conscious, and moreso at particular points in our life when we are trying so desperately to fit in, to be accepted.

There’s a lot here to eat, to enjoy, not in the least the elegant and revealing far more than they think recipes and cooking extracts which repeat throughout the novel, but also for the examination of relationships and how we become people within the world. I think if you have ever felt lost or angry or confused or baffled about how other people can people so easily while you feel five or ten steps behind then there is something here for you, a kind of understanding that is not really that present elsewhere. Do note though that there is difficulty here as well, things happen which are horrible, trauma occurs and bruises are left and the tenderness of them lingers for a long, long time and it may be difficult to read if you are working through trauma of your own.

I liked this. I liked the wicked fullness of it, the darkness of it, and the way that it does something very deliberately different and revels in it.

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