That’s what happens in the central event of There But For The — a man, Miles, gets up in the middle of an excruciating dinner party, goes upstairs, and barricades himself into the spare bedroom. He stays there for many weeks, eventually becoming a local celebrity.
The book describes the events leading up to this from the point of view of four very different people, whose stories interact is various interesting ways. The different characters give us insight into Miles’s past and his present. The dinner party itself is a great comedy set-piece — most of the guests are just appalling, if a bit stereotypical. The hosts are so generic that their names are actually Gen and Eric. And that’s typical of the kind of wordplay that fills this book, most coming from that classic stock character, the Precocious Child. Luckily Brooke, the PC in this story, is quite charming and likeable even though I thought she would be annoying when she first appeared. You just can’t tell a Brooke by her cover. (See?)
I enjoyed this book even though it was not exactly an easy read, or maybe because of it. Its free indirect speech style took some getting used to before I could easily tell whether dialogue was being spoken or only thought, and by whom. My only disappointment was that, despite lots of apparent clues littering the story, for me the novel’s central Why was never adequately resolved. I probably need to read it again — the end certainly does clarify the beginning, so perhaps I missed the big reveal somewhere along the line.