Last Night at the Lobster
Ratings11
Average rating3.7
An accurate portrait of the mood of a crew in the last day before closing down a restaurant. This took me back a couple years, which is a sign of great writing.
This is a short book, with many characters considering its length. I was impressed that I could track each character, even though who never show up. This story is a vignette - one significant day in the life of a restaurant manager.
This is just a small slice of life for these people at this Red Lobster. We get a lot of behind the scenes views of what it is like to work in a restaurant. None of these people are perfect, but they are all trying. You probably won't look at a Red Lobster the same way again. You will be expecting to see Manny, Jackie, Kendra, and the others to be there.
I enjoyed this short, quiet book very much. It's about work–as so few novels really are–and about people who feel very real.
See my complete review at Perpetual Folly.
It's the last night for the Red Lobster at the edge of an old mall in New England. The night is snowy and there are not many customers. Tomorrow, the restaurant will close forever. A perfect time to listen in as employees talk together and discuss the difficulties of living in 21st century America on a tight budget with a small circle of acquaintances. The manager relates the minute-by-minute events of the last evening, the snow falling, the troubled staff, the customers who drift in.
This thin little book is heavy on details of working at Red Lobster but thin on substance. It's got plenty of mood, but I expected the thought to go deeper. Still, there's enough here to encourage me to read more Steward O'Nan.