Cat Fitzpatrick’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel The Dinner Party

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Cat Fitzpatrick’s The Dinner Party is a compelling novel-in-verse about queer love, family, and friends. Maggie Milner wrote of the book: “Whether she’s narrating an Ovidian verse drama, composing a sonnet sequence, or retelling Plato’s Symposium in perfectly iambic envelope quatrains, Cat Fitzpatrick is a total genius at making old modes accommodate new realities. I’m so moved by this virtuosic collection of long poems about queer family-making, freaky friendship, erotic love, and gender transition. The Dinner Party is brilliant, hot, uproarious, and gay as hell: at once a high-wire camp performance and an aching tribute to the sounds and shapes of our language.” In her own words, here is Cat…