Dinner With The Schnabels is the sixth novel by award-winning, best-selling Australian author, Toni Jordan. Simon Larsen is happily married to Tansy Schnabel (and, if not quite so happily, to her family), and is the loving father of two wonderful children, Mia and Lachie. But, robbed of his practice as successful architect by the prolonged lockdown, he has spent much of the last two years feeling guilty and deficient as they live in a cramped flat while Tansy works to support them.

Suddenly, though, he is meant to drag himself out of his depressive slump to landscape a backyard. A combination of unreliable contractors and the urgent need for a venue for a memorial service mean he has committed to transforming the backyard of Tansy’s oldest friend, Naveen into the beautiful space he knows it could be, by Saturday. It’s Monday morning: no pressure, really!

The memorial is for David Schnabel, the father who left Tansy’s mother Gloria to raise three children on her own. Formidable woman that she is (read scary), Simon knows Gloria is highly sceptical of his ability to achieve this. Nor do her siblings, Kylie and Nick, radiate confidence in him. He absolutely cannot let Tansy down.

But with the best will to get started on the work, he is thwarted: Tansy insists on covertly watching the (days-early-for-the-memorial) arrival by train of the half-sister she and her siblings have never met, the child for whom their absent father was present. That backfires when Monica, young, kooky and unpredictable, spots them, and Simon watches in horror as his failure to provide for his family is put on display for a stranger.

Over the next days, Simon’s work is derailed multiple times: a long wait for a tardy refrigerator repairman; babysitting wrongly delivered pavers to prevent their theft; a mentoring coffee with a young former colleague who drops a bombshell; a bewildering meeting with the children’s headmistress revealing a problem that renders Simon incredulous; and a hint at marital infidelity that stuns him. Can he overcome all that to get the job done?

Jordan’s characters will be familiar to the reader, people we all know amongst our acquaintances, and their dialogue and behaviour is what we hear and see in our daily lives. Mia and Lachie are an utter delight, providing some priceless “what kids say” moments, while Gloria, the matriarch who is unequivocally convinced she knows what is best, is hugely entertaining.

Simon, always earnest and well-intentioned, often exhibits eye-rolling naïveté about modern life, venturing into cluelessness quite a bit, saying (or thinking) some truly groan-worthy things. But perhaps some of his vagueness is the product of his low mood.

His inner monologue reveals that incidents viewed through the prism of his depression and inadequacy take on quite a different slant when explained by others or later seen with the benefit of hindsight. It is satisfying to see that it perhaps takes hitting rock-bottom to crystallise for Simon just what truly matters in life.

As well as giving them some wise words and insightful observations, with her unfailing talent for writing humour Jordan endows her characters with plenty of wit and hilarity. And she does manage, within a page, to have the reader laughing out loud, then welling up with tears. Funny and heart-warming, Toni Jordan’s latest novel is an unalloyed pleasure to read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Hachette Australia