TONI JORDAN Dinner with the Schnabels. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Toni Jordan’s sixth novel navigates post-lockdown Melbourne with a memorable family.
Before the pandemic, Simon Larsen was a successful architect. He had everything a successful person would have – an expensive watch, a luxury car. He, his wife Tansy, and their two beautiful children lived in a nice house in a prestigious suburb.
Then 2020 came along, and all that changed. Simon’s business slowly crumbled. The house was sold, and the family moved into a cramped, dingy rental flat. The car was sold, the watch was sold. Even the Larsen’s expensive couch had to go, replaced by a ‘ flasher-raincoat grey with baby-poo and bile stripes’ monstrosity they’d purchased from Gumtree.
It’s been a couple of years since the pandemic, and Simon is stuck. Melbourne’s lockdowns might be over, but he still doesn’t leave the house much. Unable to get a new job and barely able to get out of bed, he’s become a stay-at-home dad.
All Simon wants is for everyone to just leave him alone. Which – if he’d married into any other family – might be possible. But when Simon fell in love at first sight with Tansy Schnabel at a party, back in the days of iPods and videotaping Lost on Thursday nights, he had absolutely no idea what he was getting into.
First, Simon felt a jolt. Then a shiver spread over his skin. His heart almost jumped from his chest. He felt – and this was such a cliche, he could barely believe it – as though he had been struck by lightning. Like any self-respecting bloke, he’d never believed in love at first sight, yet here it was. Unlikely as it might seem, all those romantic poets and sixties balladeers had been right all along. […]
‘That girl,’ he said to no one in particular, ‘she’s my future wife.’
Meet the Schnabels, Simon’s in-laws. Kylie is Tansy’s ultra-serious older sister. Nick is the baby of the family, a former AFL footballer and his mother’s favourite. And then there’s Gloria. She’s opinionated, bold and fierce – a force of nature. She’s the mother-in-law Simon loves to hate. The feeling seems to be mutual.
As much as Simon would love to spend the rest of his life in his pyjamas, watching funny dog videos on the internet, Gloria Schnabel has other ideas. She’s organised a memorial service for her ex-husband, David, who passed away during lockdown, leaving Gloria unable to gloat and/or grieve at his funeral. With just days remaining before the service is due to take place in Tansy’s best friend’s garden, the landscapers have gone AWOL, and Gloria’s volunteered Simon for the job. Desperate for the chance to get Gloria and the Schnabels off his back, Simon accepts.
Dinner with the Schnabels (‘It could be the title of a horror movie’ Simon quips) takes place over the course of six hectic days as Simon wrangles a wayward delivery of pavers, malfunctioning appliances, an unexpected house guest, and constant check-ups from the Schnabels. All while confronting his guilt and grief over the life he and Tansy have left behind.
If you’re new to Toni Jordan – honestly, where have you been? – Dinner with the Schnabels is the Melbourne-based author’s sixth novel, and it’s absolutely everything fans know and love about her work. It’s a warm, wise novel about family and forgiveness, bought to life by one of Australia’s most treasured writers. Jordan’s unmistakable wit, snappy dialogue and observational humour are at their best here – which means you won’t be expecting the flurry of emotional punches that will leave you swaying on your feet.
Dinner with the Schnabels shares a lot in common with Jordan’s Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, published in 2016. Both novels are concerned with life in the Australian suburbs, and both share the same glorious, chaotic, tragicomic momentum as events spiral further and further out of the main characters’ control.
There’s one other thing that these two books share. In a blog post for Text Publishing, Jordan describes Our Tiny, Useless Hearts as ‘a sly nod’ to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the novel’s plot loosely inspired by the sentences following Tolstoy’s famous first one, with ‘other nods to him along the way’.
Dinner with the Schnabels seems to give a similar nod to EM Forster’s 1910 novel, Howards End, in which the three Schlegel siblings find themselves displaced, longing for a house that feels like home. Like Jordan’s novel, Howards End is concerned with families, class and connection. As with Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, there are other ‘nods’ too, but revealing more would involve spoilers.
One worry I had as I started to read Dinner with the Schnabels? It’s the first time I’ve encountered the pandemic in a work of fiction. In this novel, the pandemic was harmless – an economic threat rather than an existential one. Lockdowns are mentioned, masks are found forgotten in the bottom of handbags. In public places, people still subconsciously socially distance. For me, reading this novel meant continually having to remind myself that the pandemic in Dinner with the Schnabels bears no relationship to reality. Other readers might face the same struggle.
Another concern: my empathy for privileged characters has evaporated in the past couple of years. Would I even be able to read a novel about a rich guy’s problems and not quietly say to myself – well, too bad?
I needn’t have worried. This is Toni Jordan we’re talking about, and creating strong, relatable characters is what she does best. From the very beginning, I was on Simon’s side. He’s vulnerable, clueless. He can’t work out how all of his pants got smaller during lockdown. His jokes are terrible. He doesn’t know he’s depressed. But what won me over is his genuine love for his kids, and for Tansy. This is from the novel’s opening chapter:
Tansy was an apple-cheeked woman with tawny-blonde, shoulder-length hair and a dusting of freckles across her nose that looked like they’d been applied with a paintbrush. Her face was heart-shaped. She looked like a milkmaid from a fairy story, like someone who always drank eight glasses of water and slept eight hours every night. Simon still thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
There’s so much about Dinner with the Schnabels that will remain with me. Gloria’s riotous speech at the memorial service is a particular highlight. But for me, it’s Jordan’s characters – the entire Schnabel-Larsen family – that made this novel such a pleasure to read.
In the best possible way, Dinner with the Schnabels left me wanting more. If this review on the Readings website is correct and there are sequels on the way, my wish might just come true. I’ll have my fingers firmly crossed.
Toni Jordan Dinner with the Schnabels 2022 Hachette PB 368pp $32.99
Michelle McLaren lives in Melbourne with her partner, two cats and way too many books. You can follow her on Twitter.
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I have not yet found Tony Jordan, but if her books are anything like Michelle’s review – can’t wait – to read more – of Michelle’s reviews. Loved it.
That’s so kind of you to say! Thank you so much Suzanne!