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Great Books

 Stewart O'Nan is ranked among Anne Tyler, Richard Russo, and Alice McDermott--the major living American realists. O'Nan could be called a hyperrealist--his attention to detail is such that you feel you're living through the experiences that he describes.


O'Nan opens his celebrated novel, "Last Night at the Lobster," with a portrait of a car, a semi-living thing. It's a damaged Buick Regal--something "a grandmother might leave behind." It's traveling through the "far vastness" of a suburban shoppers' parking lot; it's headed toward a Red Lobster. Though this part of the lot is utterly empty, the car observes all painted-on boundaries. The car also signals a turn--"for no one's benefit." (These details are helping to teach us about the fastidious driver, a man we have not met.)

This is a story about capitalism, about appetite. It's a novel about eating. A child eats a sundae and vomits on the carpet of the Red Lobster; the negligent mother devours her server's dignity. ("I'd like to file a complaint.") The corporate overlords suck the blood of their employees; this Red Lobster will close, and only five employees will find new work at the neighboring Olive Garden. Also, the manager of the Red Lobster has to grit his teeth and *choose* the five lucky employees--ensuring that the *other* employees will have (justifiable) fits of rage. We know this is a novel about appetite--we know right away, because we see "a line of salted cars, splitting as they sniff for parking spots."

A merciless, beautiful novel.

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