Phew! this took some reading, but I didn't give up and struggled through till the end. Somewhere in an American city a rich guy throws a party. It is probably in a city where movie people hang out; perhaps Hollywood. These are party regulars and Gerald and his wife are on the party circuit. Nothing phases Gerald who narrates the events in painstaking detail:

None of us noticed the body at first. Not until Roger came through asking if we'd seen Ros.

It is Ros who is laying on the floor still bleeding from a knife sticking out of her chest. Somebody calls the cops, but the party goes on; everybody is out on their feet. It seems that all the men at the party have had sex with Ros at some time and tales are told. Inspector Pardew arrives looking like something out of a 1930's movie and starts his investigation and it is only when he removes the knife and hands it round for the partygoers to look at, that I realised this was going to be a blacker than black comedy. Roger hopelessly infatuated with Ros stumbles back into the room and throws himself on top of Ros: he has to be dragged off the body. The investigation goes on, more cops arrive Ros's clothes are removed pictures are taken and someone wants to re-create the crime scene, meanwhile Gerald has the hots for Allison and is searching the house to find her, while his wife is calmly preparing more food or clearing up the mess.

Gerald is constantly interrupted; either in his search for Allison or dealing with other issues. People are arriving, blocking doorways, having sex in various rooms, Geralds young son is wandering around and a teenage girl is desperately wanting to have sex with Gerald, the upstairs toilette is blocked and one of the women can't stop poohing, people are trying to clean her up. There are more murders and something is going on in the basement, but Gerald can't get down there. He lurches from one crisis to another never managing to see anything through. His house is wrecked, people are stealing things and he hardly bats an eye and one of the cops hands him a gun to finish off one of the guests who has been shot, but is taking too long to die.

The party seems to go on forever; 330 pages of forever and I found it an exhausting read. There are graphic descriptions of bodily functions and different types of sexual intercourse, police brutality of course and extreme drunk behaviour. I get the black comedy and the irony of rich people behaving very badly and in many ways it is a brave and technically impressive novel which sometimes lurches into social commentary, but just not for me and so 3 stars. ( )

In an attempt to tie up the year's loose ends, I decided it was time to return to, and finally finish reading the last thirty pages of, Gerald's Party.

I was using a train ticket as a bookmark.

The ticket was dated January 4, 2009.

That's my review of Gerald's Party ( )

I started reading this book on the train to work this morning, but abandoned it when Gerald went back into the bathroom to continue cleaning Naomi's bottom, as I just couldn't face any more of it.