Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (Paperback)

As Pearl Tull lies on her death bed, _Dinner_ recapitulates the lives of the Tull family over nearly fifty years. Pearl, the mother of Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, never recovered from the abrupt abandonment by her husband Beck after fourteen years of marriage, some thirty-five years prior. But Pearl has problems beyond a marriage gone awry. She is unusually harsh and critical, and even abusive, with her children, exhibits almost no understanding of them, is quick to take offense or misconstrue situations, and is obsessed with appearances, hers and theirs, even pretending for years that her husband had not left. Cody is absolutely malicious in his dealings with his younger brother Ezra dating from his teenage years into middle-age. Jenny, after two failed marriages, manages to get through medical school but not without first being physically abusive towards her own daughter and then becoming strangely oblivious to the needs of her family in a third marriage.

Ezra, the balancing humane element of the book, becomes a partner, with a worldly, elderly lady, in a restaurant near his childhood Baltimore row home, where he still lives with Pearl, despite his mother's abhorrence at the idea. After becoming the sole owner, Ezra remakes the restaurant in his own image, making it unpretentious and home-like, hence the Homesick Restaurant. Ezra makes several attempts to gather the family for dinners at his restaurant through the years. In an apt metaphor for the book, those meals are never completed, as squabbles, usually initiated by Pearl, break up the gatherings.

It may be argued that many families are essentially dysfunctional, but the uptightness and antagonisms of the Tull's are a step beyond. Jenny's concern for her patients and Pearl's grandmotherly kindness softens the otherwise harsh picture somewhat. But Pearl has already had her familial influence.

Has the author captured and shed light on a realistic or probable situation? As usual, she is highly consistent and not squeamish in examining her characters. Although the story is certainly grim and stark, it has a feel of legitimacy. And that is the book's appeal. Perhaps it can be said that all of Tyler's work questions many long-standing assumptions about families. Don't look for any big lessons or triumphs in the end in her books. According to Tyler, life is what it is.