- Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
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Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant 
1st edition coverAuthor(s) Anne Tyler Country United States Language English Publisher Knopf Publication date March 12, 1982 Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback) Pages 303 pp ISBN 0394523814 OCLC Number 7732718 Dewey Decimal 813/.54 19 LC Classification PS3570.Y45 D5 1982 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.
Plot
Pearl Tull is a rigid perfectionist. She has three children with her husband, traveling salesman Beck, who abandons the family. After Beck leaves Pearl struggles to maintain a front as if nothing is wrong, but she is prone to angry outbursts when her children misbehave. Cody, the oldest, is wild and adventurous, but is envious of his brother Ezra whom he believes is Pearl's favorite. As they are growing up, this plays out in endless pranks. Ezra is passive, and never tries to get back at Cody. He is nurturing and sweet, traits that often interest Cody's girlfriends furthering Cody's resentment. Ezra goes to work at a restaurant which he later manages and ultimately inherits, while Cody becomes a wealthy and successful efficiency expert. When Ezra becomes engaged to Ruth, his star cook, Cody becomes obsessed with luring her away, and ultimately succeeds, but his marriage to Ruth is not easy. Ezra never recovers, and remains at home with Pearl; he is a caregiver, both for Pearl and his customers, but this is underlain by sadness.
Jenny is the second child and most scholarly of the Tulls, but in college she marries on an impulse with unhappy results. Only in her third marriage to a man with six children whose wife has abandoned him does she find stability in family life and in her successful if harried career as a pediatrician.
A recurring scene in the novel involves Ezra's unsuccessful attempts to bring the family together for a meal at his "Homesick Restaurant", reflecting his desire to unite and mend the family. At Pearl's funeral Beck returns to the family for the first time. However, they never seem to be able to get through a single dinner without conflict, this time with Cody facing down his father.
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Novels by Anne Tyler If Morning Ever Comes (1964) • The Tin Can Tree (1965) • A Slipping-Down Life (1970) • The Clock Winder (1972) • Celestial Navigation (1974) • Searching for Caleb (1975) • Earthly Possessions (1977) • Morgan's Passing (1980) • Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982) • The Accidental Tourist (1985) • Breathing Lessons (1988) • Saint Maybe (1991) • Ladder of Years (1995) • A Patchwork Planet (1998) • Back When We Were Grownups (2001) • The Amateur Marriage (2004) • Digging to America (2006) • Noah's Compass (2010)Categories:- 1982 novels
- American novels
- Alfred A. Knopf books
- Novels set in Baltimore, Maryland
- Novels by Anne Tyler
- 1980s novel stubs
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