A review by tommooney
The Dinner Guest by Gabriela Ybarra
3.0
THE DINNER GUEST by Gabriela Ybarra.
This Spanish non-fiction/novel, longlisted for the international Booker, is essentially a meditation on dying.
Ybarra's family are an inherant part of the establishment in the Basque country and so have long been the targets of separatists. In 1977, six years before she was born, her grandfather was kidnapped and murdered by ETA.
The Dinner Guest recounts his killing alongside a very personal account of Ybarra's mother's losing battle with cancer.
Though the many threads of the story don't always tie together, I found this a very honest and heartfelt account of death in the family. There were several moments of gut-wrenching emotion and Ybarra's straightforward, candid style works very well.
This Spanish non-fiction/novel, longlisted for the international Booker, is essentially a meditation on dying.
Ybarra's family are an inherant part of the establishment in the Basque country and so have long been the targets of separatists. In 1977, six years before she was born, her grandfather was kidnapped and murdered by ETA.
The Dinner Guest recounts his killing alongside a very personal account of Ybarra's mother's losing battle with cancer.
Though the many threads of the story don't always tie together, I found this a very honest and heartfelt account of death in the family. There were several moments of gut-wrenching emotion and Ybarra's straightforward, candid style works very well.