Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant : A Novel

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Summary: Bet You Can't Read Just One...
Review: This is the book that got me hooked as a lifelong Anne Tyler fan. Her writing speaks to me in so many ways; I'm always moved, amused, frustrated, angry or just plain bewildered along with her quirky characters. Their feelings are authentic and I can often identify with them. As an author myself (NEW PSALMS FOR NEW MOMS: A KEEPSAKE JOURNAL, Judson Press), I especially appreciate Anne Tyler's wonderful eye for detail, writing descriptions that are spare yet so evocative. I've read all of her books and always look forward to the newest novel from this talented writer.

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Summary: A haunting tale of the dreams and nightmares of a family.
Review: This was required additional reading for an undergraduate developmental psychology course at George Mason University in 1984. Fifteen years and two academic degrees later, I am still haunted by this story. Tyler's portrayal of a child in a dysfunctional family depicts more danger to the human spirit than being homeless in the dead of winter. Having been a single parent of four wonderful daughters has made me appreciate what Anne Tyler brought to life in "Homesick." I almost felt guilty for being so lucky by comparison. I've since read other Tyler "monuments to humanity" and was finally able to enjoy a comparatively happy ending in "Ladder of Years" (which was recommended by a member of my fiction-writers monthly critique group). Although real-life happy endings are often mixed blessings, this long-overdue conclusion left me glad for the journey.

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Summary: The family you never wanted but love to read about
Review: This was the first novel I read by Anne Tyler. I have now proceeded to read everything else she has ever written. The ending is a little off; it's not quite what anyone would expect, but the journey to the end is one that is unforgetable. By the end of the first chapter, you will be hooked on this book for life. It's a fairly quick and thoroughly enjoyable read. Highly recommended.

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Summary: One Big Unhappy Family
Review: Tolstoy's famous first line from Anna Karenina was made for the Tulls: ""Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The unique form of unhappiness that is the Tulls is expressed in their ironic inability to finishing a meal at the Homesick Restaurant. Each time they gather at the restaurant to celebrate or mourn, come together as a family, they find a way to quibble, harass and fight. They alienate, dispute, belittle, and generally irritate each other to the point where one or more characters run off in anger or disappointment.

This is indeed a dysfunctional family, headed by a runaway father and a manic mother who is just as apt to crack her children on the head as she is to show she cares. The oldest son, Cody, is a classic bully who continually tries to upstage and belittle his brother Ezra; this process reaches its zenith when he steals away Ezra's wife-to-be for no better reason than she is engaged to Ezra.

The structure of the book revolves around Pearl Tull, the mother, who at the beginning lies on her deathbed and by the end is dead. In between we flashback to the troubled lives of all of the characters. Tyler takes pains to show how miserable a creature Pearl could be, beating her children on a whim, stubborn, ignorant, and vain. Her children form the crooked bond of siblings in response to the instability of their mother.

They all simply want to be valued, accepted, loved. This theme comes to the forefront at the books end when Pearl's long-departed husband Beck returns for her funeral. He and Cody have a heart-to-heart in which he tells Cody that he left because he could never do anything right in Pearl's eyes. This small piece of honest conversation - could this really be the only time this happens in the novel - has its affect. Cody asks Beck to return to the funeral dinner with the prospect of a completed meal ending the novel!

What I found intriguing about the novel was that despite how horrid Pearl's actions often were, I found myself feeling protective of her. The pathos of her old age - blind yet refusing to admit it; doting on her children and grandchildren; seeking some solace in the lies of her diaries; following the Baltimore Orioles intently on the radio - somehow touched me. She is fully human, damaged goods, serious to the point of being silly; yet we identify with her.

Tyler is a master at creating the sense of a real family, unique and not happy in the least.


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Summary: Fantastic!
Review: What can I say about this book??? It was fantasic, superb, a wonderful if sometimes disturbing read. Anne Tyler captures so well the devastating effects that the lack of love and security and connection in our family can have on us for the rest of our lives. Her characters are so troubled and so unable to really live in the world, always desperately wanting the family they didn't have, always afraid and isolated from real human connection, detached from their own feelings. The three children, for all their flaws, are enormously sympathetic -- for how were they to know how to live, how to feel, how to connect, when they were raised by a woman who is so incredibly isolated and rigid and, perhaps, incapable of real love?? I had little feeling or sympathy for their mother, Pearl, which is one of the best aspects of Anne Tyler's novels -- her characters are not universally likeable and sometimes -- most of the time -- they don't redeem themselves in the end. Like real life, there isn't always a neat little happy ending.

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Summary: reading between the lines
Review: When I finished this book I had a sort of let down feeling. Is that all there is? But her prose is so beautiful, I went back to read the final paragraph aloud to my friend at breakfast the next morning. I discovered her mastery at saying profound things while telling a seemingly ordinary story. How many of us carry the perceptions of our childhood, of things that happen when we are perhaps 6 or 8 years old, for the rest of our lives and allow them to mold and shape the entire remainder of our lives? Perceptions that may or may not have been true, or perhaps were true then and are no longer. This book, as have her others, moved me and taught me great lessons. Thanks, Anne.

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Summary: Should have won the Pulitzer
Review: While Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer Prize for Breathing Lessons, she really should have won for this--her finest book. I have always been a Tyler fan, but when DINNER came out I realized she had moved on to a more ambitious palette. I think this is one of the best books of the past 40 years, and I think that Anne Tyler is often not given the respect she deserves becuase she is accessible. She writes real books that aren't about how clever she can be, but are always revelations of the human condition. Her comedies are not as good as her other books, but she's always worth reading. But this is a book you'll want to find in a hard back edition and keep on your shelves.

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Summary: Wonderful. My favorite Anne Tyler.
Review: You know how every once in a great while, a part of a story is so wonderfully presented that you recall it in detail even after the rest is nearly forgotten? I read Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant more than a decade ago, and I'll never forget a scene (don't worry; it's near the beginning) in which Pearl, the mother, is dying, and she deliriously imagines her bed is on a beach and her adult children are running towards her, toddlers again. This book is so honest and touching and wonderful. I've read nearly all of Anne Tyler's novels. This one is undoubtedly my favorite.