Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
"Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" by Anne Tyler is a poignant exploration of family dynamics, love, and the complex relationships that evolve over time. The story centers on Pearl Tull, an elderly woman reflecting on her life as she faces death, and her son Ezra, who supports her in her final days. Pearl's troubled marriage to Beck Tull, who abandoned the family decades earlier, looms large over the narrative, influencing the lives of their three children—Cody, Jenny, and Ezra. Each sibling navigates their own struggles with relationships, jealousy, and personal failures, often mirroring the dysfunction of their upbringing.
As the family attempts to gather for a post-funeral dinner at Ezra's restaurant, tensions and unresolved issues surface, highlighting the challenges of familial bonds. The story delves into themes of abandonment, guilt, and the yearning for connection, portraying how past grievances can shape present interactions. Tyler's writing offers a rich, character-driven narrative that invites readers to reflect on the complexities of family life and the enduring search for belonging and reconciliation. Through the lens of the Tull family, the novel captures the bittersweet nature of love and the often tumultuous path toward healing.
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Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
First published: 1982
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Comic realism
Time of plot: 1925-1979
Locale: Baltimore, Virginia, and Pennsylvania
Principal characters
Pearl Cody Tull , a dying womanBeck Tull , Pearl’s husbandCody , ,Ezra , andJenny , their childrenLuke , Cody’s sonHarley Baines , Jenny’s first husbandSam Wiley , Jenny’s second husbandJoe St. Ambrose , Jenny’s third husbandRuth Spivey Tull , Cody’s wifeMrs. Scarlatti , restaurant owner
The Story:
Pearl Tull is dying. She is eighty-five years old. Her son Ezra stays with her. One of her dying wishes is that Ezra invite all the people in her address book to her funeral. One of those people is Beck Tull, Ezra’s father, whom he hasn’t seen since 1944, when Beck got tired of being married and left his wife and children never to return, he said, even to visit the children.
In 1944, Pearl pretends that Beck has not abandoned her. She raises her children herself, working part-time at the Sweeney Brothers grocery store. When her only friend visits her, she pretends that Beck is away on a business trip. Although at times she abuses her children, calling them names and hitting them, all of them seem on the surface to turn out fine. One day, Beck comes back to town and stands in front of the house, watching. Cody comes out. When Beck sees that Cody is getting along well without him, Beck goes on his way without letting the family know he was there.
Cody, the oldest sibling, has a love-hate relationship with his brother Ezra. He feels jealousy for Ezra that colors everything he does. He feels that he and Ezra are always in a contest and that each time they compete Ezra either wins or, as in a game of Monopoly, quits without a struggle. Cody is so determined to win games he and his family members play that he cheats. Ezra, however, seems unaware of any contest between himself and Cody. When Ezra becomes engaged to Ruth Spivey, Cody determines to win her away from Ezra. He succeeds, marrying Ruth.
Cody becomes employed as an efficiency expert. He moves his family from place to place, helping make companies more efficient. He hardly ever visits his family in Baltimore. When he does, the visits are always short, sometimes cut even shorter by his perception that Ezra is trying to win Ruth back. He and Ruth have a son, Luke, who hardly ever sees his grandmother but loves her dearly. When Luke is thirteen, the family moves temporarily to Virginia, where his father has a serious accident. While recuperating, Cody gets angry and says to Ruth in front of Luke that Luke is really Ezra’s child. Luke then hitchhikes to Baltimore to Ezra’s restaurant. After this event, the relationship between Luke and Cody improves significantly. They are goose hunting when Pearl dies.
Ezra is the most easygoing of the Tulls. He seems passionate about two things: the restaurant business and Ruth. Ezra works for for Mrs. Scarlatti at her restaurant, and they become close friends. Much to Pearl’s dismay, Mrs. Scarlatti sells part interest in the restaurant to Ezra for one dollar. When Mrs. Scarlatti is in the hospital, Ezra redesigns the inside of the restaurant and renames it the Homesick Restaurant. Mrs. Scarlatti dies, and he becomes the owner. Ezra lives at home and cares for his mother. He is with Pearl when she dies.
Jenny becomes a pediatrician in Pennsylvania. She has two unsuccessful marriages, the first to a genius named Harley Baines and the second to Sam Wiley. She thinks of Sam as the husband she loved the most. Sam and Jenny have a daughter, Becky. Both Jenny and Becky at times suffer from anorexia. When Becky is a baby, Jenny is alone, serving her residency in pediatrics. Jenny finds herself on the verge of a breakdown. She mistreats her baby in ways similar to the ones in which Pearl mistreated her. When Pearl discovers how sick Jenny is, she comes to Pennsylvania to help. She arranges for Jenny to take leave from her work. She treats Becky and Jenny extremely well and, with Cody’s help, arranges for Becky to have caregivers when Jenny returns to her residency. Jenny then becomes much more relaxed. Jenny goes into pediatric practice in Baltimore and marries Joe St. Ambrose, who has six children. They have one child together. Jenny becomes so relaxed that when one of her stepsons repeatedly gets into trouble, she makes jokes about it, not taking it seriously.
Ezra is the most family-centered of the Tull children. He repeatedly plans family dinners at Mrs. Scarlatti’s restaurant and then at his own. The dinners usually end in disaster, with family members fighting and leaving before the meal is finished. Sometimes, the dinners break up before the family starts to eat.
After Pearl’s funeral, Ezra wants to have a family dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Beck attends the funeral, and Ezra invites him to the dinner. Cody is upset because he does not consider Beck part of the family. He and Beck argue at the dinner, and when Sam and Jenny’s baby begins to choke, Beck runs off. Cody wants to let him go, but Ezra insists that everyone try to find him and bring him back. Cody eventually joins in the hunt. He hopes to run into Luke. He sees someone that he thinks is Luke sitting on a curb, but it turns out to be Beck. The others find Cody and Beck and bring them both back to the restaurant. Finally, the family may finish a dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.
Bibliography
Adamson, Lynda G. Thematic Guide to the American Novel. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. Includes a section discussing the representation of marriage in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.
Croft, Robert W. Anne Tyler: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. Treats both primary and secondary works, including dissertations and theses and many book reviews.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. An Anne Tyler Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Contains overviews of Tyler’s life and the themes of her works, as well as an alphabetical listing of specific works, characters, themes, and motifs. Briefly analyzes Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and provides a list of works about the novel.
Evans, Elizabeth. Anne Tyler. New York: Twayne, 1993. An easily accessible introduction to Tyler and her works through Saint Maybe (1991). Treats, among other things, the child abuse in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.
Petry, Alice Hall. Understanding Anne Tyler. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. This book, one of a series from the University of South Carolina Press devoted to the complete works of individual authors, is a good introduction to Tyler and her works. Chapter 8 treats Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, assessing its place in modern American literature. It emphasizes family relations in the book.
Voelker, Joseph C. Art and the Accidental in Anne Tyler. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989. Chapter 7 treats Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, investigating the book’s unity and its use of symbols.