Book Review: "Supper Club" by Lara Williams
“Supper Club” by Lara Williams
Publisher Synopsis: For fans of Sally Rooney's Normal People: A sharply intelligent and intimate debut novel about a secret society of hungry young women who meet after dark and feast to reclaim their appetites--and their physical spaces--that posits the question: If you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into?
Roberta spends her life trying not to take up space. At almost thirty, she is adrift and alienated from life. Stuck in a mindless job and reluctant to pursue her passion for food, she suppresses her appetite and recedes to the corners of rooms. But when she meets Stevie, a spirited and effervescent artist, their intense friendship sparks a change in Roberta, a shift in her desire for more. Together, they invent the Supper Club, a transgressive and joyous collective of women who gather to celebrate, rather than admonish, their hungers. They gather after dark and feast until they are sick; they break into private buildings and leave carnage in their wake; they embrace their changing bodies; they stop apologizing. For these women, each extraordinary yet unfulfilled, the club is a way to explore, discover, and push the boundaries of the space they take up in the world. Yet as the club expands, growing in both size and rebellion, Roberta is forced to reconcile herself to the desire and vulnerabilities of the body--and the past she has worked so hard to repress. Devastatingly perceptive and savagely funny, Supper Club is an essential coming-of-age story for our times.
Rating (out of 5): 4.25
Review: I wasn’t sure what to make of this book going in, but I will say—right off the bat, I enjoyed it. Williams’ prose is insanely readable; there are so many details that really bring Roberta to life.
I will also say that I don’t really understand the comparison to “Normal People.” I liked, but didn’t love, the Sally Rooney novel, whereas I felt truly connected to Roberta. This is not a light read, but it is an original one; it’s darkly comedic, uncomfortable at times, satisfying at other times.
The novel jumps between “present day,” when Roberta is nearing 30, and her university days. We learn about Roberta’s childhood trauma, how she sees herself as an outsider, and doesn’t really like herself, and then finds solace in college through cooking. Interspersed in some chapters are paragraphs about preparing food: sourdough, pasta puttanesca, souffle. Each food interstitial related back to Roberta’s life: the patience it takes to make sourdough, the luck involved in a souffle, the “unruliness” of pasta puttanesca, aka “whore’s pasta.” (It should be noted that Williams’ food writing is also excellent.)
In the present day, Roberta is stuck at a job she doesn’t much like, doing things she isn’t interested in, when she meets and befriends Stevie, an artist. The two women eventually move in together and start a women-only Supper Club—a subversive, late-night club in which they break into buildings, eat with abandon, often take their clothes off, and do drugs. The other members’ stories involve cheating husbands, violence at the hands of men, and abortions. These are women who, in some form or another, have been made to feel small, and Supper Club helps them reclaim their literal and metaphorical appetites, taking up space. Supper Club is a modern-day Bacchanalia, and Roberta, as the main chef, is its unofficial leader.
Some of Roberta’s decisions can be maddening at times, but I generally like a flawed protagonist, when done right. There were times, such as during her college years, when I identified with Roberta socially (I definitely hid in my college apartment instead of socializing sometimes), and others when I was frustrated by Roberta’s actions. Throughout the novel, though, she explores what it means to be likable, “radicalizing the natural order” by being bigger than her boyfriend, behaving in a way society tells her she shouldn’t. This was a thought-provoking premise and felt like a refreshing take on feminism in our feminist-saturated society. I do recommend, if the trigger warnings won’t affect you too much, as some chapters were harder to get through than others. As women, though, I think it’s important to find space for ourselves, to unabashedly own our desires without shame, and to be ourselves despite what society deems “likable.”
Trigger Warnings: rape, sexual assault, self-harm, binge-eating
TL;DR: You’ll want to gobble up (sorry, couldn’t resist) this wholly original novel in which women explore how to reclaim their appetites and take up space. An introspective Bacchanalia, darkly comedic, and ultimately satisfying.
If you liked this, try:
“Fleishman is in Trouble” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Moira’s review here)
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