MostlyFiction Book Reviews » Stewart O’Nan We Love to Read! Wed, 14 May 2014 13:06:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 EMILY, ALONE by Stewart O’Nan /2011/emily-alone-by-stewart-onan/ /2011/emily-alone-by-stewart-onan/#comments Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:13:59 +0000 /?p=16959 Book Quote:

“Why does she always want more, when this was all there was? ‘I’m sorry, Emmy,’ her mother would say, with her teacher’s maddening patience, ‘but that’s not how the world works.’ ”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (MAR 24, 2011)

Stewart O’Nan may simply be genetically incapable of writing a bad book. His characters are written with precision, intelligence and verisimilitude; they’re so luminously alive that a reader can accurately guess about what they’re eating for dinner or what brand toothpaste they use.

In Emily, Alone, Mr. O’Nan revisits Emily, the Maxell family matriarch from a prior book, Wish You Were Alone. Anyone who is seeking an action-based book or “a story arc” (as taught in college writing classes) will be sorely disappointed. But for those readers who are intrigued by a near-perfect portrait of a winningly flawed elderly woman who is still alive with anxieties, hopes, and frustrations, this is an unsparingly candid and beautifully rendered novel.

Emily Maxwell is part of a gentle but dying breed, a representative of a generation that is anchored to faith, friends and family. She mourns the civilities that are gradually going the way of the dinosaur – thank you notes, Mother’s Day remembrances, and the kindness of strangers. Her two adult children have turned out imperfect – a recovering alcoholic daughter and an eager-to-please son who often acquiesces to an uncaring daughter-in-law.

With her old cadre of friends dwindling and her children caught up in their own lives, Emily fills her days with two-for-one buffet breakfasts with her sister-in-law Arlene, classical music, and her daily routine with her obstreperous dog Rufus, who is instantly recognizable to anyone who has spent life with an aging, sometimes unruly, always goofy and loving animal.

Whether she’s caring for and about her Arlene, trying to keep up with family holiday traditions, keeping tabs on a house sale nearby, and trying to do the right thing in educating her children about executor’s duties, Emily struggles to find purpose. She recognizes that time is not on her side any longer and reflects, “The past was the past. Better to work on the present instead of wallowing, and yet the one comforting thought was also the most infuriating. Time, which had her on the rack, would just as effortlessly rescue her. This funk was temporary. Tomorrow she would be fine.”

The thing is, we all know Emily. She is our grandmother, our mother, our piano teacher, our neighbor. She is the woman who gets up each day and attends the breakfast buffet or participates in a church auction, or waits eagerly for the mail carrier or feels perplexed about preening teenagers who blast their stereo too loud. She is the one who wonders whether she should have tried a little harder with her kids, even though “she’d tried beyond the point where others might have reasonably given up.” She is the woman who senses that life is waning but still intends to hang on as long as possible and go for the gusto.

The fact that Stewart O’Nan can take an “invisible woman” – someone we nod to pleasantly and hope she won’t engage us in conversation too long – and explore her interior and exterior life is testimony to his skill. Mr. O’Nan writes about every woman…and shows that there is no life that can be defined as ordinary.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 74 readers
PUBLISHER: Viking Adult (March 17, 2011)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Stewart O’Nan
EXTRAS: Author Q&A and Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

Movies from books:

]]> /2011/emily-alone-by-stewart-onan/feed/ 0 THE LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER by Stewart O’Nan /2009/the-last-night-at-the-lobster-by-stewart-onan/ /2009/the-last-night-at-the-lobster-by-stewart-onan/#comments Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:39:03 +0000 /?p=3026 Book Quote:

“Two months ago Manny had forty people working for him, twenty of them full-time. Tonight when he locks the doors, all but five will lose their jobs, and one of those five—unfairly, he thinks, since he was their leader—will be himself. Monday the survivors will start at the Olive Garden in Bristol, another fifteen minutes’ commute, but better than what’s waiting for Jacqui and the rest of them. He’s spent the last few weeks polishing letters of recommendation, trying to come up with nice things to say—not hard in some cases, nearly impossible in others.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Sudheer Apte (JUL 25, 2009)

Headquarters has decided to shut down the Red Lobster restaurant in a small mall in New Britain, Connecticut. We spend its last twelve hours in it with the restaurant manager, a Latino man named Manny DeLeon, as he struggles to keep his ship afloat just one more time, in the face of an impending New England snowstorm and an unmotivated crew.

Last Night at the Lobster is a short novel, but it punches well above its weight. Its most enjoyable distinction is its minute observations of day-to-day life in the running of a typical American restaurant.

Writer Stephen King once made the observation that people seem to enjoy reading about someone else’s work. Perhaps it’s easy to imagine why one might find a few glamorous professions interesting to read about, but the manager of a small chain restaurant in a mall probably doesn’t fit the bill. And yet, in Last Night at the Lobster, Stewart O’Nan is able to make Manny DeLeon’s job fascinating, and his character distinctive and ultimately tragic.

Part of the magic may be in Manny’s personal life: he drives an old “white shitbox of a Buick” which was an inheritance from his grandmother. His girlfriend is pregnant, and he’s not completely over his former girlfriend Jacqui who also works at his restaurant—or rather, the restaurant that was his until tomorrow, when it will close forever, and he will probably never meet Jacqui again. Perhaps as a consequence, he smokes cigarettes to mask the smell of dope.

But certainly, the main reason why we cannot put down this book is Manny’s nature. Conscientious and committed (he stops at every stop sign even in a deserted mall in the dead of night), Manny thinks of the restaurant as his own and looks after it. He is also quite good at his job of managing the crew: while Leron is very competent, he drinks and is unreliable, whereas little Eddie, who is handicapped, is nevertheless punctual since he is dropped off and picked up regularly by his service, and Eddie is also easier to boss around, although Manny would never admit this.

Manny’s loyalty, his proprietary pride at having looked after his restaurant, and his terrible sadness at its impending loss and the loss of most of his colleagues, are all easy to see. More surprising than the corporate machine’s treatment of this man, is just how lonely he is in feeling this way, while most of the people around him seem focused on getting their paycheck and moving on. O’Nan has written ten novels before this, and he may well have a good recipe for his plot lines, but this particular everyman character doing his job is the secret sauce in this one. Hope to see him again soon.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 89 readers
PUBLISHER: Penguin; Reprint (October 28, 2008)
REVIEWER: Sudheer Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Stewart O’Nan
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Our review of:

Another good restaurant manager novel:

Another good end of job book:

Another good “drift-of-life” book:

And, finally, another good “snow” book”

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

Movies from books:

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