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Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant | Introduction

Critics generally consider Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Anne Tyler's ninth novel, to be among her best work. It won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award and the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. Also a commercial success, it has to date sold more than 60,000 copies in hardcover and more than 655,000 in paperback. Published in 1982, the medium-length fiction spans several decades in the history of the Tull family of Baltimore, Maryland. Often compared to William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the narrative begins with 85-year-old Pearl Tull, blind and on her deathbed, attempting to reconcile with her role as a deserted wife and single parent. Will her three grown children—Cody, Jenny, and Ezra—forgive her for sometimes being a physically and verbally abusive mother? Told from alternating points of view, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is ultimately about how growing up in an unconventional, turbulent family affected three children in very different ways.

Although many critics considered the novel less optimistic than her other work, it drew much praise for its psychological insight, rich characterization, well-developed plot structure, and impressive handling of multiple points of view. Like many of her other novels—including Earthly Possessions, Searching for Caleb, and The Accidental Tourist—Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is about the burden of a person's past, be it personal, familial, or historical.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Summary

Part I: Pearl
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is the story of the Tull family of Baltimore, Maryland, told first from the perspective of Pearl Tull, and then from the perspective of each of her children, Cody, Ezra, and Jennifer. Because the novel is told from differing points of view, readers often witness the same event several times, with different emphasis.

Chapter One, "Something You Should Know," opens as Pearl Tull lies dying in her Baltimore home. Her son Ezra sits next to her. She recalls her life, not in chronological order, but in the way memory works, one memory sparking the next. She begins by recalling how she had almost lost her oldest son Cody as a baby and that near loss was the catalyst for her having more children. From this memory, she moves farther back in time and recollects meeting and marrying Beck Tull, a traveling salesman. Pearl was thirty at the time, nearing spinsterhood. Her marriage did not turn out as she had planned. Beck moved the family from place to place and neither Pearl nor her children were able to form connections with other people. Finally, Beck tells Pearl that he does not want to be married any longer, and he leaves the family, now settled in Baltimore. Pearl finds herself a single mother with children aged fourteen, eleven, and nine. In order to keep up the appearance of a normal marriage, Pearl lies to her children, family, and friends, saying Beck is away on business. Pearl recalls a time when the family was together in the country and Beck was teaching Cody how to use his new bow and arrow. Cody accidentally shoots his mother in shoulder. The wound festers; when Pearl has it treated, she nearly dies from an allergy to penicillin.

Amidst the memories of her younger days and of her children's childhoods, Pearl surfaces into the present periodically. At these times, she thinks about her own impending death, her funeral (and how surprised Beck will be when he is invited), and her adult children. She wonders if her children blame her for something and she thinks that there must be something wrong with each of her children. As the chapter closes, Pearl drifts off. Whether she drifts to sleep, or to death, we cannot tell at this moment.

Part II: The Family
Each of the next chapters of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a self-contained... » Complete Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Summary