But one day his routines are blown apart when his woman friend (he refuses to call anyone in her late thirties a "girlfriend") tells him she's facing eviction, and a teenager shows up at Micah's door claiming to be his son. These surprises, and the ways they throw Micah's meticulously organized life off-kilter, risk changing him forever. The voice from The Exorcist: NO DINNER TONIGHT!! NO BREAKFAST, EITHER!! GET OUT OF MY ROOM, ALL OF YOU!! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M READING????"

Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant - SuperSummary

She wondered if her children blamed her for something. Sitting close at family gatherings ... they tended to recall only poverty and loneliness - toys she couldn't afford for them, parties where they weren't invited. She remembered the feel of wind on summer nights - how it billows through the house and wafts the curtains and smells of tar and roses” Cody's feelings of abandonment lead him play juvenile pranks on his brother, which Ezra shrugs off like a puppy. Cody catalogs every oversight and begins feeding into a jealous narrative that Ezra is loved and he is not. He ultimately finds lucrative work as an efficiency expert, spending as much time on the road as his father. Pearl has high hopes that Ezra will become an educator, but he spends most of his time at Scarlatti's Restaurant, where Jenny learns her brother's ultimate desire is to manage the place, providing old-fashioned meals for customers who miss the comforts of home. Jenny goes to college to study medicine, meeting the first of three husbands there. in Ezra, a hint of the unposturing selflessness whose effect on people denied faith in the possibility of human purity is invariably to intensify cynicism. ''Cody hated the radiant, grave expression that Ezra wore sometimes; need for cheer can be among young or old. Ezra's movingly unconsidered kindness and generosity has a similar source. Even Cody, who for much of the story is perceived as an enemy of light, emerges at the end as a man elevatedAnd everywhere there's a marvelous delicacy of finish, witness Pearl Tull's drifting remembrance as she falls off into her long sleep: ''She remembered the feel of wind on summer nights - how it billows through the house and wafts

DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT | Kirkus Reviews

How they approached life is evident in the end when all the characters in this nuclear family comes together to take leave of the very old Pearl Tull at her funeral service. Despite everything she did, she left good people behind. How did it happen?

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A: For one thing, this book somehow managed to end up very much like the book I envisioned when I first began writing it. That almost never happens. I remember that when I’d finished, I thought, I’ve done what I wanted to. And then I’m so attached to the characters. I still miss them, even all these years later. self-effacing) - has been, at a minimum, interesting and well made. But in recent years her narratives have grown bolder and her characters more striking, and that's increased the temptation to brood about her direction and destination,