Book Review: Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan

Last Night at the Lobster

Author: Stewart O’Nan

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Date of Publication: November 1, 2007

Pages: 160

Some authors write great epics about heroic people.  Others write about ordinary people in extra-ordinary circumstances.  I’ve always admired authors who could tell stories about ordinary people and their every-day lives and make those stories interesting.  It’s an added bonus if the author can make those same stories humorous, poignant and thought provoking at the same time.  Anne Tyler is one of those authors.  So is Stewart O’Nan.  In this novel Stewart O’Nan creates a culture of average lower middle class workers and restaurant customers who collectively tell an all too familiar story of displacement, insecurity and anxiety.  He introduces these characters quickly but deftly and uses dialogue to help us know and understand them like they were old friends. 

Last Night at the Lobster is O’Nan’s twelfth novel.  He also has several non-fiction titles to his credit, including one he co-wrote with Stephen King about the Boston Red Sox.  The author grew up in Pittsburgh, went to undergraduate school at Boston University and now lives in Connecticut.  Small-town New England is the setting for this wonderful short novel.

The novel describes closing night for a marginally successful Red Lobster just off of an interstate highway in Connecticut.  Upper management has decided to close the restaurant instead of spending what it would take to remodel it.  The story is told by the Lobster’s long-time manager, Manny DeLeon.  Manny takes great pride in “his” restaurant and although he is grateful that he has been offered another job, he is not looking forward to the demotion to assistant manager at a new Olive Garden. 

The novel opens with Manny parking his dilapidated Buick Regal in the Lobster parking lot and smoking a joint before opening.  A major snowstorm is beginning as well.  Manny has to deal with his disgruntled employees, some of whom have been let go and four of which are following Manny to the Olive Garden.  There are petty jealousies among the waitresses and major attitude problems with the kitchen staff.

The rest of this short novel (or long short story) details the frustrations and disasters which occur on this last evening.  A large office party comes in and neither waitress wants them because large parties are notoriously bad tippers.  Two women have lunch with a totally undisciplined toddler.  The final blow comes right before closing when a busload of Japanese tourists come in to use the bathroom (the bus driver claims that they all got dysentery at a Red Lobster farther south on the interstate).

All the while Manny has to juggle a minimal inventory, malfunctioning equipment, a blizzard and employee insurrection.  Few of you know this about me, but I abandoned a career in the restaurant business to pursue medicine.  I had rocketed through the fast food industry and was the “Special Whopper” bench guy at the Falls Church Burger King when I realized there had to be a better way to make a living.  While in college I also worked for a year or so at Blackie’s House of Beef at 22^nd and M Streets in D.C. (Anyone ever go there?  Remember the blue cheese and crackers before dinner?).   I can recognize some of my own restaurant experiences in this melancholy, but at times hilarious, novel. 

Last Night at the Lobster does have a purpose other than pure entertainment, however.  I think that the value of the book is that it points out the comfort of familiarity and the reassurance of routine.  The closing of this restaurant rocks Manny’s world, as well as that of all of the other characters in the book, including the regular customers.  Uncertainty and change do not always bring out the best in people, as this book demonstrates quite well.  One reviewer calls Last Night at the Lobster “a perfectly observed slice of working class life.”  This book was written and published long before this current economic crisis and job loss.  However, the author creates very real characters and uses dialogue superbly to tell a fabulous fable for our times. 

(Note: This Review was originally published in "LamLight", the physician newsletter for the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine in 2008)

Book Review: The Odds by Stewart O'Nan

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The Odds

Author: Stewart O'Nan

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Publication Date: September 25, 2012

Pages: 192 (Trade Paper Edition)

       Author Stewart O'Nan continues to publish short, compulsively readable novels about everyday people.  The Odds continues the tradition of The Last Night at the Lobster and Emily Alone, setting ordinary people in recognizable but difficult situations.   The Odds is reminiscent of the best of Anne Tyler in this regard.

    This is the story of Art and Marion Fowler, a couple whose relationship is as empty as their bank accounts.  Simultaneously on the verge of bankruptcy and divorce, the couple travel to Niagara Falls for Valentine's Day.  They have an improbable plan for solving their financial woes.

     Told in the third person, the author succeeds in authentically depicting every emotional reaction in this tempestuous excursion.  O'Nan also is spectacular in his choice of setting and his use of detail.  Art and Marion's trip to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum on the very day when their plan will succeed or fail is priceless.  The juxtaposition of the absurd with the very real is humorous and melancholy at the same time:

     "Little was original, let alone authentic.  In smudged plexiglas boxes sat priceless artifacts of the ancient world, shiny with varnish.  Most of the exhibits were simply reproductions of old wire service photos.  Several times, waiting for him to read the notes on the wall, she had to cover a yawn."

     Stewart O'Nan's novels strike a chord with me.  It could be because his characters are so real, believable and easy to commiserate with.  It could be because the situations are recognizable.  His eye for detail makes the otherwise rather mundane stories come to life.  I think, though, that the reason that I like his books so much is because they are so well written.  His economy of words, precision of pacing and flawed but likable characters are a joy.  The Odds did not disappoint in any of these areas.  

Book Review: Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

Emily, Alone

By Stewart O'Nan

     Stewart O'Nan has an incredible ability to elevate the everyday lives of ordinary people and make them reason for celebration.  In Emily, Alone he renders nine months in the life of an average octogenarian and makes them fascinating.  He actually makes this woman's life an epic battle between the human spirit and age, infirmity, depression, disappointment and regret.  This story is reminiscent of the best of Anne Tyler, who also spins great stories from lives of everyday people.

     The book opens with Emily Maxwell wallowing in her widowhood, chagrined over the changes in her neighborhood and home town of Pittsburgh and longing for her younger days.  She is contemplating a Thanksgiving visit from her divorced daughter and two of her grandchildren:

"She could not stop these visitations, even if she wanted to.  They plagued her like migraines, left her helpless and dissatisfied, as if her life and the lives of all those she'd loved had come to nothing, merely because that time was gone, receding even in her own memory, to be replaced by the diminished present.  If it seemed another world, that was because it was, and all her wishing  could not bring it back."

     Emily relies on her sister-in-law Arlene for transportation as well as for moral support.  It is Arlene who listens to Emily's monologues about her underachieving and unappreciative offspring and Arlene who buoys her spirits when they are at their nadir.  Again reminding me of Anne Tyler, this author sets several key scenes within the confines of a car.  (Remember the wonderful car scenes in The Accidental Tourist"?)  Emily frets over Arlene's overly cautious driving and worries for both of their safety.  Then, a funny thing happens at the Eat and Park, a breakfast spot where Emily and Arlene eat once per week (with coupons in hand from the Sunday newspaper).  Arlene passes out in the middle of the buffet line and Emily is startled out of her doldrums.  Forced by Arlene's hospitalization to resurrect her husband's ancient Oldsmobile from the garage where it sat idle since his death, Emily rediscovers her independent spirit and begins to drive.  She finds that she has abilities which she thought were long gone.  She begins to take charge of her life again.

     The visit from her alcoholic daughter happens and Emily makes the best of it.  Emily surprises everyone when she trades her husbands old car for a new Subaru. One whole chapter is spent on Emily suffering from a cold.  This book is not a thrill-a-minute page turner, but the masterful writing and the gradual enlightenment of Emily Maxwell somehow holds the reader's interest and does make you want to find out what mundane occurrence Mr. O'nan can weave some magic into next.  On the night that daylight savings time goes into effect, Emily muses:

" Lying there with the false hour glowing over her shoulder, she reflected on the arbitrary, changeable nature of time, and how, at her age, she was almost free of it.  The idea pleased her, as if she'd discovered something elemental.  Springing ahead was an official admission that no clock could ever measure the rotation of the earth, or the earth around the sun, birth and death, the turning seasons, the thrust of new shoots.  Though she couldn't quite say why it was a comfort, floating in this unmapped, in-between state , she appreciated time being imaginary and malleable, as if, knowing its secret, she might loosen its hold on her.  But in the morning, when she woke, it was still dark out, and she was a full hour behind.  She had to hurry to get ready for church and then was late picking up Arlene."

   Towards the end of the story Emily decides to visit her husband's grave, something she hadn't done in years:

"She knew it was an illusion, the idea that he was here.  Henry wasn't one to linger.  His spirit or soul had flown, off to happily tackle whatever work was needed.  And yet, as she turned the last gentle curve and slowed, pulling to the side, she felt a flutter of anticipation comprised equally of excitement and dread, as if he might chastise her for being late."

     Buoyed by that trek, Emily next travels to her small hometown to visit the graves of her parents.  It is during this visit that Emily has an epiphany of sorts:

"She would be judged by how she lived her life, not how she wished it had been.  She accepted that completely.  She was painfully aware of her failings.  Every Sunday she confessed them, and while by no means clear, her conscience was no heavier than most, or so she hoped."

     Emily, Alone is a character study of the highest caliber.  Emily Maxwell becomes so familiar to the reader that she becomes your neighbor, your friend, your grandmother.  The reader cares what happens next, no matter how mundane.  You feel the pain as she culls her basement for items to donate to the church bazaar and decides to donate her husband's old luggage.  The smell of the leather and the monograms emblazoned on the largest suitcase evoke strong memories of exotic vacations.  You can feel her pain when the suitcases don't sell and are unceremoniously thrown in the church dumpster.  You share Emily's frustration when her long-time physician retires and she has to adapt to her new Pakistani internist.  The reader cares for this lovely old woman, even though most of the people in her world seem not to.  No review of Emily, Alone would be complete without a mention of Rufus, Emily's aging faithful hound dog.  Rufus is Emily's main companion, listens with her to classical music by the fire and pays attention to many of Emily's musings.  Rufus is, in a way, the anti-Emily.  As the months progress, Rufus gives in to his infirmities, spending more time sleeping in the sunlight and having more and more difficulty managing the stairs, both up to Emily's bedroom as well as out to the backyard to "do his business".  Rufus becomes very sedentary just as Emily is discovering her ability to cope with and overcome her physical obstacles. 

     This is a book to be savored, not raced through.  The author treats us to precise and evocative writing which is rarely encountered.  The characters here are believable, likable, entirely human and strangely familiar.    In the end, human spirit does not triumph over age, infirmity, depression, disappointment and regret as much as it learns to peacefully coexist with them.   Read Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan.  You will be glad that you did.