Dinner for Two
by Mike Gayle
Rating: 8 out of 10

Mike Gayle is my second favorite contemporary British male author after Nick Hornby. In fact, after Hornby’s last two efforts, Gayle’s appeal is increasing to me. I’ve read 3 of his 4 novels now, starting with My Legendary Girlfriend and following that up with Mr. Commitment. I skipped over his last book, Turning Thirty, but I am ready to read it now, especially considering I’ll be doing that in December.

Dinner for Two is his most recent book and is about a guy, Dave, who has been married for 3 years and his biological clock is starting to tick. His wife isn’t too hip on the idea of kids. Dave’s magazine writing career takes a small turn as he goes from writing for a serious music magazine to writing an advice column for a teen magazine. That career change alters his life forever. He receives a letter from a girl who claims she is his 13-year-old daughter. What transpires is a great story about relationships – relationships between husband and wife, between parent and child, between friends.

Gayle captures the male mind very well, finding us in our insecurity and helplessness, our pride, our concern for our spouse/girlfriend/significant other. So many times while reading the book, I related to Dave and his experience with his wife, Izzy. It’s always so great to find an author who truly knows what it is like…it makes you feel that your experience is similar to others out there.

While I doubt Gayle will ever win a Pulitzer for his novels, he writes in a way that is accessible to common readers…a way that people can truly relate to and understand. Not only that, but his writing is timely to me as a person. For example, an excerpt from the chapter, “select”:

“It’s eight o’clock on the following Friday night and Izzy, our friends and I are standing in our local video shop: Blockbuster on Fortis Green Road. The shop is full of people like us: a slightly older crowd for whom staying in and watching a video has become the new going-out-clubbing-and-drinking-too-much.”

That passage is real life – such a true snapshot of daily life. While much of the book is about Dave and his newfound daughter, I found myself gravitating toward the chapters where he interacted with his wife, Izzy. Their relationship is really great, one that I think that people would be lucky to have. They love and respect each other without condition and I admire that in a couple. It’s too rare of a thing. That’s why I liked those chapters so much: the stuff in-between the huge events of our life is really what makes up the volume of your experience. Day-to-day life and how you deal with it is what matters. Gayle is an author who realizes that and I have a great respect for authors who can convey it in an interesting way.