Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a 1982 novel by Anne Tyler set in Baltimore, Maryland.
The book follows the lives of three siblings: Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, and explores their experiences and recollections of growing up with their mother, Pearl, after the family is deserted by their father, Beck. The novel ends with Pearl's funeral, and a surprise occurrence.
The novel examines how siblings may share the same events yet experience them differently. E.g. Cody remembers his childhood as a harsh time. He blames himself for his father abandoning him and considers himself left to the mercy of an angry mother who favours Ezra. Meanwhile Ezra remembers his childhood fondly and creates a nostalgic family-themed restaurant.
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is Anne Tyler's ninth novel. It was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1983. Anne Tyler considers it her best work.
Read more about Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant: Plot
Famous quotes containing the words dinner, homesick and/or restaurant:
“Ask a wise man to dinner and he’ll upset everyone by his gloomy silence or tiresome questions. Invite him to a dance and you’ll have a camel prancing about. Haul him off to a public entertainment and his face will be enough to spoil the people’s entertainment.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“You left me last evening, and I am already half homesick about it. Possibly I would not have thought about it so feelingly, but the sight of these gloves put me in mind of it. What a happy time we have had! Six weeks of real, genuine, old-fashioned love.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“In a restaurant one is both observed and unobserved. Joy and sorrow can be displayed and observed “unwittingly,” the writer scowling naively and the diners wondering, What the hell is he doing?”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)