I read this novel on a balmy March day but the setting is so convincing that I looked out the window several times to see if it was snowing. In Last Night at the Lobster, O'Nan creates a pitch-perfect world - a Red Lobster restaurant before it closes for good. He treats the restaurant and the staff with respect, avoiding the easy impulse to satirize. Every page glimmers with truth. Reading this novel makes me realize how rarely that happens in literature.

Absolutely pitch-perfect. I don't know if everyone can appreciate exactly why this book is so perfect, but what O'Nan has done in capturing the mood of a crew of food service workers just as their workplace is about to shuts its doors forever is remarkable. In any service environment, a peculiar culture builds up among the employees, but in food service that culture knits itself in a very specific way. It's all about the money: how the servers relate to the kitchen staff, bar staff, and managers...

Last Night at the Lobster owes what little effectiveness it has more to its three conceits than to skill or insight. First, it's narrated in the present tense, for a sense of immediacy. Second, it's set entirely in environments (a chain restaurant and a shopping mall) that are comforting by design. Third, the story takes place during a snow storm, for a sense of surreality and semi-isolation. O'Nan does little else to generate the mood on which the novel depends; in particular he provides few of...

4.75I loved this little jewel of a book. Stewart O’Nan manages to write a 160 page book about the employees at a Red Lobster during the span of their last working day and make it intriguing. I kept waiting for something…..anything to happen and yet when it didn’t, that was OK. Yep, he's that good.

I’m becoming a new Stewart O’Nan enthusiast! Hot damn — the man can write —This slim novel was first published in 2007 … 162 pages. O’Nan crushes it ‘real’between the employees, customer shenanigans and chilly blustery weather conditions. (think current days in many parts of country)My ‘favorite Stewart O’Nan 'love' (so far) — is “Ocean State”, but I enjoyed this novel (novella). The cast of characters are multifaceted flawed, and very realistic. I’m reminded of the many stories our daughter bro...

Reading this book I was reminded of Joe Queenan's Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon (1999), an unfunny book of tossed-off "humor" pieces about the irrevocable cheesiness of American culture. In an essay called "Slouching toward Red Lobster" (see what I mean by "unfunny"?), Queenan describes the chain as a place for people who think they're too good for Roy Roger's. That about sums up his point: I'm better than other people, and I get to write a book about it!What I loved about LAST N...

Short, slice-of-life 2007 fiction about the man sent to close for good -- and right at the holidays -- a dying chain restaurant on the edge of a decaying mall in a decrepit industrial town. Absorbing, but does not ignore humor. A quick read, and a very good one!

3+ starsMurphy's Law states," Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."A restaurant closing and subsequent job loss, a love affair ended, a blizzard to ruin a final night, a powerball ticket's disappointing numbers - such bad luck, and yet, this book is not only about loss.Having worked as a waitress I found the relationship among the staff of The Lobster very realistic. There are the complainers, the undependable, and maybe the dishonest but there is also the camaraderie. During the quiet tim...

Eating at the humble Red Lobster won’t be quite the same after reading this bittersweet ode to the service industry.It’s a grey, snowy Saturday a week or so before Christmas, and the Red Lobster near a rundown New England mall is about to close down – for good. Sales just aren’t up to scratch, and all the staff has been let go, except for five, who are being offered jobs at an Olive Garden a few towns over.In fact, today is the restaurant’s final day, and it’s up to hard-working manager Manny De...

Manny De Leon is spending a double shift working his last day as the manager of a Red Lobster. The bosses at the corporate headquarters have decided to close this older restaurant. Lacking the holiday spirit, the bosses picked December 20th as the last day of operation.The book follows Manny, hour by hour, in the restaurant while a blizzard dumps snow on the parking lot outside. Some of his crew show up in spite of the weather because they have a sense of loyalty toward Manny. Manny is kind and

Because I live in my own little world inside my head, complete with pugs dressed as butlers and rainbows made of Laffy Taffy, it was a long time before I became aware of Stewart O’Nan. Partially, I suppose, this is due to the fact that O’Nan’s books do not draw undue attention to themselves. He is not an elegant prose stylist; he does not construct elaborate plots that bend time and space and then loop back again; and he does not fetishize the typical professions found in most novels/television

3.5 stars"Here we go," Manny says, to himself as much as anyone, and for the very last time he flips the breaker for the neon sign by the highway, then slides the tab of the plastic CLOSED sign on the front door to the right to let the whole world know that they're OPEN for business. -- page 29O'Nan's novella Last Night at the Lobster would make a satisfactory companion piece to the memoir Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip - Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by Steve Dublanica, which I happened to r...

Picked this one up for two reasons:a.) the cover and size grabbed my attentionb.) it's set around the holidays and I needed a good Christmas book to read.O'Nan is a really good writer, no doubt about it. He's got a good voice. He's very descriptive and does a great job of putting you in the setting.This book, however, was greatly disappointing. It had been lauded by folks like the NPR critics, but I'm not sure why. Yes, he painted a stark and realistic portrait of what it's like to work in a res...

I found out about this book from a GR friend, and really ended up loving this story about the last day at a Red Lobster restaurant after they receive news from corporate that their location is being permanently closed down. The manager and a few remaining staff members try to give it their all to make the last day a success, despite the day’s blizzard. Being the last day, others decide to give nothing at all, or stir the pot. It’s interesting to get an inside peek at the staff dynamics, almost l...

Connecticut, December 20thWe follow the employees of a Red Lobster finish their very last shift as the main headquarters has decided to close their doors for good. I had heard so many great things about this novella and after having read and loved Ocean State by this author just recently I knew I had to check this out. I was expecting something along the line of the movie Waiting with Ryan Reynolds and Ana Faris - a movie I love - and I was getting those vibes in the beginning but then my intere...

A little gem of a novel from a writer I hadn’t read before. It’s told from the perspective of Manny, a manager from within the eponymous restaurant chain, whose branch in a New England town is being closed down by Head Office. He’s a conscientious employee and a decent guy, but is also someone with his own personal problems. On his last day he has to cope with difficult customers, dispirited and resentful staff, and a major snowstorm. There isn’t really a plot, just the events of the restaurant’...

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/This little bitty book is about exactly what the title states – the goings on with the staff of the local . . . . . Not to be confused with . . . . . As they work the last shift before their failing location is permanently closed. Some will simply be moving to the next nearest franchise for their next shift, some were such terrible employees at the current strip-mall site that there’s no way manager Manny could give them any so...

This is a kind of day-in-the-life story of a restaurant – in this case the last day, as management took the decision to close its doors for economic reasons. It’s a Red Lobster restaurant-chain, but it could be a fit-in for any franchise restaurant. The author does a wonderful job of humanizing this last day.The main character is Manny and we come to see how he relates to his employees – (view spoiler)[ and his girlfriend at home who is pregnant and his other girlfriend at the restaurant (hide s...

This little gem I read in one sitting on a blizzard January night near Chicago. It cannot be other than a 5 for the perfect voice of work life that O'Nan accomplished. An unknown author to me, this book was found sitting on the NEW shelf as I came in from -2 temperatures. I paused, just standing there, to warm up and let my returns unfreeze in their bag. Not to get books but to bring them back. But this single one sang out to me for some reason. I read no reviews, nor had seen any preview traile...