Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Fast, Howard - Diana McLellan (review date 17 February 1987)

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Diana McLellan (review date 17 February 1987)

SOURCE: “Washington's Power Eaters,” in The Wall Street Journal, February 17, 1987, p. 32.

[In the following review, McLellan offers unfavorable assessment of The Dinner Party.]

Recently, an attractive woman told me of attending a Washington dinner party with a lobbyist beau. During the evening, she met a bigwig she had once expressed a fleeting desire to know.

Next morning, her lover mailed her a bill: “For Introduction: $600.”

Romantic, no? No. Romance is never invited to Washington dinner parties; the lingering glance and secret touch are out of place. Introduction is the main course: “Persuasion, meet Power.”

Over snowy napery and gleaming silver, their faces magically softened by candlelight and their wits sharpened by wine. Washington's great, near-great, and Oh-God-if-I-pull-this-one-off-I'll-be-great gather for their kind of dinner party.

It is...

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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