The Secret Dinner
Raphael Montes discusses The Secret Dinner, a dark story of ambition, inequality, and four roommates in Rio de Janeiro.
What happens when four broke roommates in Rio de Janeiro discover that wealthy strangers will pay an obscene amount of money for the ultimate forbidden dining experience? Brazilian bestselling author Raphael Montes joins Brian for a deliciously dark conversation about The Secret Dinner , his wildly entertaining new thriller about friendship, greed, desire, addiction, and a supper club with one very horrifying secret. They talk about the real Rio behind the novel, writing characters who keep crossing lines they swore they never would, Dante’s queerness and recovery, the uneasy relationship between appetite and morality, and why a book about cannibalism can also be very, very funny. Editor Ryan Doherty joins the conversation to tell the story of acquiring The Secret Dinner at auction, the moment in the manuscript that made him know he wanted to publish it, working with translator Zoe Perry, and bringing one of Brazil’s biggest thriller writers to a new audience. Come hungry. Maybe don’t ask what’s for dinner.
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