Last Night at the Lobster

When people say: “The novel is dead,” they often overlook what the best novels have always done: they use the condensed space of a finite number of pages to tell a story that illuminates the life of the careful reader. “War and Peace” says a lot in a lot of pages about humanity, history and love. Other recent novels spend only slightly fewer pages, not always as successfully, to tell their stories. Then there’s Stewart O’Nan’s jewel of a novel, “Last Night at the Lobster.” It is ostensibly the story of a Red Lobster in a New England mall that has been, in a sense, “decommissioned.” Shortly before Christmas, it has been ordered closed by the corporation. The entire novel, only 146 pages, takes place during the last night of the restaurant’s operation. O’Nan researched the running of a Red Lobster in considerable detail: from the setting of the tables to the order of cooking, to the presentation, to the processes necessary to both open and close the place. They don’t get in the way, but rather serve as devices by which O’Nan shows us the routine, non-creative nature of what the staff does and how their lives are prescribed, in large part, by what they do. It becomes much more than a story of the last night of a restaurant.

Manny, the fat manager, has a pregnant girlfriend, Deena, but he has also recently concluded an affair with Jacquie, a waitress at the Lobster. Manny has regrets about both relationships and, while he plans on marrying Deena at last, it is with a pending sense of resignation rather then joy. Manny is a good man and a decent manager. He willingly pitches in at all necessary jobs when some of the staff, working their last day, bail out early. He is considerate of them and of his women and most warm toward the memory of his “abuelita,” or “little grandmother,” who was clearly close to him and remains so even though she is gone. We come to care about Manny and thus to care about his staff. I began to wonder, as I reluctantly reached the end of “Last Night at the Lobster,” how many restaurant managers in his position would have remained open to the end during a snowstorm? How many would insist that everything be made ready for a dinner traffic that was simply not going to materialize “just in case?” How many would struggle to start a snow blower to clear the walkways for non-existent patrons? How many would handle the disasters that visit the Lobster in its last night with such resigned aplomb and professionalism?

“Last Night at the Lobster” is a gem of a novel. Its characters are real, the setting impeccably drawn and we care about everybody who populates its small space. It’s almost good enough to make you want to work for Manny in his next job at the Olive Garden. I don’t think there is a novel written yet that’s good enough to make me want to do that.