Waiting for a Party

Synopsis

Claire Meadows is ninety-two, a retired piano teacher. She’s baked a pistachio cake, as she has for seventy years, and is waiting to be collected for the 102nd birthday party of her old friend Martin, a detective novelist. As she waits, her thoughts meander through a lifetime of memories – marriage, widowhood, friendship, longing, and a sexual awakening that came shockingly late.

With humour, ambiguity, and sharp insight, Claire reconsiders the man she married, the life she lived, and the strange, hard-won freedom that followed. What really happened the night her husband died? Did she remake her life, or simply reframe it? And is desire ever really behind us?

By turns tender, frank, and subversively funny, Waiting for a Party is a quietly radical portrait of an older woman who refuses to disappear.

Praise for this Book

‘An exquisite, elegiac novel of late female desire.’ —Simon Okotie

Reviews of this Book

‘The Literary Fiction You Should Be Reading There’s a slight Mrs Dalloway-esque air to this slim novel, which spans the hours that pianist Claire spends waiting to attend the birthday party of her novelist friend, Martin … As her mind circles around her numerous lovers – and her “found family” – she meditates on what makes for a life well-lived and re-evaluates her marriage: was it as happy as she is determined to believe? And was her husband’s death a stroke, or perhaps an accident that she had a hand in?’ —Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail

‘Claire’s voice is one we seldom hear from, that of an elderly woman – “people of her age are not written about; they are written off”; she is also unexpectedly preoccupied with sexual longing. This is a woman who still craves sexual connection and fulfilment. Waiting for a Party is surprising and refreshing in its graphic and detailed descriptions of these past encounters with various men.’ —Julia Kelly, The Irish Times

‘Main’s novella takes the form of a long interior monologue … Claire explores a multitude of themes along the way: love, marriage, friendship, sexuality and ageing, and, of course, memory … Another enjoyable, skilfully crafted piece of fiction.’ —Susan Osborne, A Life in Books

‘Vesna Main has cultivated a reputation for experimental fiction in a handful of books, including her novel Good Day? (2019), which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths prize. Her latest novel, Waiting for a Party, is in the self-aware vein of her previous works: at one point, the ninety-two-year-old protagonist, Claire Meadows, wonders what kind of genre her life would occupy, were it fiction. One of the possibilities Claire considers – “a Bildungsroman” or coming-of-age novel – might seem unlikely, given her age, but it is in fact the best way to describe this late-life story of self-discovery, sexual awakening and friendships that feel like family.’ —Julia Dallaway, TLS

Praise for Previous Work

‘In the opening pages of Vesna Main’s short story collection we meet two women – both objects of the male gaze but under very different circumstances. The first story references EastEnders, the second the Salon des Refuses, challenging the reader’s moral perception and demonstrating the nuances of consent. Themes like these emerge throughout the otherwise disconnected 20 stories in the Croatian author’s collection. They are introduced with a quote by Alberto Manguel from his novel All Men Are Liars: “It is strange that no reader ever understood that my only subject is love.” The desire to be loved runs throughout Temptation, but there are no happily-everafters here.’ —Antonia Charlesworth, Big Issue in the North

‘Lush Library Recommends: Anna James’ Books for 2018 Another collection of short stories, this one from Croatian writer Main, these look at ideas of loneliness, passion and obsession and the sometimes gray areas between them. In these experimental stories of different lengths and styles, her characters include a prostitute turned murderer, a self-destructive book collection and a perfectionist dinner party hostess.’ —Anna James

‘Vesna Main’s novel is inventive, witty, “experimental” in style and structure, but none the less involving and powerful for that. It is written in purely dialogue form and makes a point of leaving its readers with their own share of imaginative work to do. The multiple narratives are ingeniously interwoven and the dialogue handled with a deftness of touch that keeps readers perpetually on their toes. Although she has learned some handy lessons from Nathalie Sarraute and other, mainly French practitioners of the “new novel” Vesna Main here shows herself a highly distinctive, adventurous, and formally accomplished writer whose work should find many admirers.’ —Chris Norris

‘Main’s stories are vivid, strange, thrillingly brief and filled with sex, violence and the banal horror of daily life. They are unusual tales filled with often unlikeable characters. Temptation is for you if you like witty, sharp dialogue, experimental modernist fiction and stories which speak to the darkest corner of ourselves.’ —Megan Kenny, Disclaimer Magazine

‘It is thought-provoking and insightful, and, while it could prove uncomfortable reading for anyone who is part of a middle-aged married couple, I think it is an important book and one that I can imagine prize judges responding to very positively as the year unfolds.’ —Scott Pack

‘The format might lead one to expect an ironic, fabular illustration of how unsophisticated readers get fiction wrong. But Main is more sophisticated than that. There are layers of fiction in Good Day?, each of them unstable.’ —Times Literary Supplement