Last Night at the Lobster

It's just a few days before Christmas, but there's no holiday cheer at the Red Lobster restaurant in New Britain, Connecticut. The corporate overlords have decided to close down the underperforming eatery, and it's left to Manny to make sure his rapidly dwindling staff keeps up standards on this last day of operations. To make matters worse, a snowstorm is moving in, making travel hazardous and giving both staff and customers even less incentive to go above and beyond.

O'Nan has written a book that is almost claustrophobic in its deceptive simplicity, with the entire narrative other than one scene set within the restaurant's walls. The manger, Manny, is imbued with a sad, quiet dignity that is complicated by his hopeless romantic show more entanglement with one of his employees. Most of his staff has already checked out mentally, but Manny can't keep himself from doing everything by the book and giving the few customers who show up a quality dining experience. He's anxious that everyone should walk away from this last night at the Lobster with good memories, an impossible task under the circumstances but noble even in its impossibility.

On a more superficial note, the glimpse "behind the curtain" of how a chain restaurant operates was also fascinating to me. I cringed in sympathetic horror as Manny and his staff tried to cope with a pint-sized terrorist, an unexpected large office party, and the elderly lunchtime regular who has no idea that his daily refuge is being yanked out from beneath his feet. show less

In so many novels of the working class, there seems to be a need for redemption. The small man rising against the machine, the worker getting his own back. It’s like the world of the working man needs to have some intense catharsis, rising above, finding the love of a good woman worth more than being with the woman you really love. In such novels, Manny would have burned down the Red Lobster, or done something to make corporate sorry for discounting his hard work. He would have fallen magically in love with Deena, discounting Jacquie as a fling and gratefully driving home to his baby-mama, happy that he came to his senses.

Manny did not need that sort of redemption nor did O’Nan force down our throats this sort of nonsense. Manny show more needs no explanation and he needs no apologist. He just needs a voice. Read the rest of the review here. show less

This is well nigh perfect. It tells of the last shift at the Red Lobster, a chain restaurant that is shutting down on the 20th December. Manny, as the manager, has to deal with a short & disgruntled staff, a snow storm and his own personal life, which is a bit of a mess. In love with a waitress, Jacquie, his girlfriends, Deena is pregnant and he has no idea what to get her for Christmas. If you want a plot driven book, then this is probably not for you, there isn't a lot of plot. What it is instead is a character study, what makes people tick, why the continue to care (or not) when they are on the verge of losing their job.
It put me in mind of the writing by Claire Keegan, that same lack of action, the same focus on the small details show more of a life. Slightly less sparse and pared down, this is by no means a bloated book in need of an editor. It makes for a very good read.

Re-read. This is just as engaging on a second reading as it was the first. show less

It would be easy to slight this novel--novella really; I read its 146 pages in less than two hours. The style was described as spare in reviews and its emotions are understated and it deals with ordinary people on an ordinary day where nothing extraordinary happens. It's four shopping days before Christmas and a Red Lobster restaurant at a New England mall is closing. At the start of the novel its manager, Manny DeLeon, is opening up for the last shift. Through the day he deals with difficult customers, even more difficult employees, and an impending blizzard. That's it. But O'Nan really is brilliant in his little character sketches of the people who come through the doors of the restaurant. And even if his prose could be called spare, show more it's not lacking in the punctilious detail, from the yellow bands on the lobsters in the tank to the cheap toilet paper, bringing the place sharply to the eye. It's elegiac in tone but never sentimental, melancholy and bittersweet with more than a touch of humor, while the present tense lends both immediacy and lyricism. If O'Nan never worked in a restaurant, he nevertheless evidently did his homework, and serves up a slice of working class life and depicts well what it feels like to work with a group of people--the loyalties, betrayals, resentments, rivalries.

I only read one O'Nan novel before this, A Prayer for the Dying, and it's hard to think of a novel more different. It was set in the American West right after the Civil War during an epidemic. It doesn't have any element of the supernatural yet won the International Horror Guild Awards for Best Novel in 2000. That novel was gruesome and grim--and a stunner. This is a much more quiet, gentle story. I'd say the only thing they have in common is the restraint in language and emotions, and in both novels that's extremely effective. I'm impressed by this author's range. I'll definitely be reading him again. show less

A few years ago, at the start of the Covid pandemic, the Pizza Hut in our town closed down, as did a lot of restaurants. Sadly, its corporate headquarters made the decision to close it permanently. I've often wondered what happened to the dozen or more employees who lost jobs there. Well, Stewart O'Nan's acclaimed 2007 novel, LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER, opens a window into a similar situation, giving human faces and feelings to the workers at a Red Lobster near a failing Massachusetts mall. Their last day plays out from the viewpont of the Lobster manager, Manny DeLeon, a long-time and conscientious 'company man,' who has other problems - a pregnant girlfriend he doesn't really
love, and a waitress he still loves, though their affair has show more long since fizzled, and several unhappy workers who have shown up for this last day of work. And it's all set against a massive winter storm just four days before Christmas. O'Nan works his trademark magic of 'inhabiting' his main character, putting the reader inside Manny's head - and heart - in this awkward and, at times, heartbreaking final day of work at the restaurant.

I've often seen comments from O'Nan fans that this is their favorite of his books. Now I understand that enthusiasm, although I also wonder if they might have loved it for its brevity, at less than 150 pages. But the fact that whole lives are so vividly represented in those few pages says a lot. This is, I think, my thirteenth O'Nan book, so obviously I'm a fan. Loved this one too. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

Manny has managed a Red Lobster restaurant for years, but today is his last day. In fact, it’s the last day for all employees since the parent company decided to close this location. Many have already quit, but Manny managed to assemble a skeleton crew for the day. The restaurant is next to a shopping mall and it’s nearly Christmas, so they would normally be very busy. But a snowstorm threatens, and nobody knows how the day will play out.

As the restaurant opens and they begin lunch service, we get to know Manny and his crew. Manny is dealing with loss and regret, at the restaurant and in his personal life. Some employees have been offered jobs at a nearby Olive Garden, sparking resentment from others. A few bail as the weather gets show more worse. Manny insists on staying open for dinner, aided by his most loyal staff who rise to the occasion, making their last night together both poignant and memorable.

Stewart O’Nan takes a very subtle approach to character and plot development, infusing this novella with human interest and emotion while still leaving much unsaid. The reading experience is simply lovely. show less

Sparse, elegant, direct, to-the-point, the language in this luminous little book is what I learned in writing class: "show, don't tell." As soon as I picked up the book and read the first paragraph I knew I had found a gem.

In fine detail, O'Nan lets this story of the last night of a restaurant in a mall in Connecticut develop, pushed gently along by Manny, the restaurant's manager and story's protagonist. The Lobster is a chain restaurant, whose parent company has decided to close because it does not have "the numbers" needed. Most of the staff will be laid off, except for Manny and five staffers he has chosen from among the restaurant's wait and cooking staff. Tonight, the last night, snow begins to fall, and the forecasts provided by show more the media range from a few inches to two feet.

Manny arrives as early as usual, and brings the dormant restaurant to life, switching on lights, powering up machines, all the while reminiscing about his days here at the Lobster. Reliable staff, losers, petty thieves, loyal employees, friends, all populate Manny's nostalgic trip, until the first of the staff arrives.

The day starts, there is enough staff to handle the lunch hour, and the story shifts from inside the kitchen, inside the staff room, inside the staff, out to the customers who come to eat on this day, four days before Christmas.

It is a bittersweet tale, of romance lost, of competition between waitresses for good tippers, of petty rivalries, as well as of loyalty to fellow workers, to dedication to doing one's job well, to adherence to a code of honor.

All along O'Nan lets his characters tell their tales, adding only sufficient detail to make the picture robust. Yet these characters need little assistance: these are their lives, and they are not afraid of being alive, even if some parts of their lives are not what they wish.

In a mere 146 pages (and small pages, at that), O'Nan unfolds a masterful, insightful, look at the lives of characters he clearly loves. A gem. Highly recommended. show less