Dinner im Heimweh-Restaurant (1982)

I went into this novel with dread. I was expecting this book to hit a bit too close to home and maybe a little hard to swallow (mother death is always a hard one for me). To be honest, I have never read a novel by Anne Tyler and did not expect such incredible prose and vivid storytelling. This was a heartbreaking portrait of a flailing, damaged, and toxic American family doing their best (and as in life sometimes someone’s best just simply falls short). The heartbreaking, sad, and devastating moments of this novel felt both necessary and vital to the meaning of the story Tyler weaves in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (and weren’t the entire Tull family both homesick and in dire need of nourishment? Some of them literally starving?)

This is my first but certainly not my last Tyler novel. ( )

Very character driven. I gave it 3 CDs and tried a bit of the last.

First chapter the mother/wife was the narrator.

Second chapter was the eldest son. Offering his perspective of events.

Third chapter sounded like it was going to be the daughter's voice. I was bored with the other two perspectives so wasn't interested hearing it all again in another voice.
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Not fond of the narrator's male voices. If anyone listened to the audiobook of Clan of the Cave Bear you'll know what I mean when I say her male voices sounded like Brun. I even looked up CotCB audiobook to see if they were the same narrator and they are not.

DNF ( )

Okay, this is the second Anne Tyler book I've read in the past month, and I'm now officially a fan. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is the epitome of that classic reviewer's term, "keenly observed." Tyler captures so many small moments, so many poignant, true thoughts and interactions so well, that it made me ache for--and often identify with--just about every character in the story. Beautiful book. Loved it. ( )

People felt real. Good and bad moments. Sometimes, not all people are likeable. ( )

My first Anne Tyler but one of my favourite genres, the drama of the ordinary family. Plot is secondary in this genre, it's character, character,character and matriarch Pearl is a doozie. ( )