Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Fast, Howard - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 9 February 1987)

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Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 9 February 1987)

SOURCE: “Books of the Times,” in The New York Times, February 9, 1987, p. C16.

[In the following review, Lehmann-Haupt offers positive evaluation of The Dinner Party, though he finds fault in Fast's lack of literary sophistication.]

An old-fashioned Ibsenesque moral drama is what Howard Fast has undertaken in his latest novel, The Dinner Party, about a wealthy liberal United States Senator who is forced to confront his own limitations.

Honoring Aristotle's prescription that a tragedy should occur “within a single circuit of the sun,” The Dinner Party begins with Senator Richard Cromwell waking up on his estate in the suburbs of Washington early in the morning, and ends with his retiring to bed late the same night. Between these moments, a great deal happens.

Cromwell gets up, goes for a run and makes an appointment with his secretary—who...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. George Mayberry (review date 10 May 1943)
   2. Irving Howe (review date 16 December 1957)
   3. Kenneth Fearing (review date 23 April 1961)
   4. R. Z. Sheppard (review date 7 November 1977)
   5. Merle Rubin (review date 30 September 1984)
   6. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 9 February 1987)
   7. Diana McLellan (review date 17 February 1987)
   8. David Savage (review date 22 February 1987)
   9. Jacqueline Trescott (essay date 3 March 1987)
   10. Howard Fast with Mervyn Rothstein (interview date 10 March 1987)
   11. Michael Kilian (review date 21 April 1987)
   12. Bruce Cook (review date 23 October 1988)
   13. Rhoda Koenig (review date 5 November 1990)
   14. Christopher Hitchens (review date 25 November 1990)
   15. Leo Braudy (review date 9 December 1990)
   16. Stefan Kanfer (review date 10-24 December 1990)
   17. Clancy Sigal (review date 20 January 1991)
   18. Ronald Radosh (review date March 1991)
   19. Gerald Meyer (review date Spring 1993)
   20. Howard Fast with Alan Wald and Alan Filreis (interview date 1995)
   21. George Traister (essay date 1995)
   22. Andrew Macdonald (essay date 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright