Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a highly acclaimed novel by Anne Tyler. It is a work of realistic fiction following the lives of three siblings as they grow up with a tragic household. After its publication in 1982, the book was nominated for a number of prominent awards: the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
The plot is about three children: Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, and their experiences as they grow up under the care of Pearl, a single mother. After the family is deserted by Beck, their father, the members each undergo a variety of transformations. Each child has a different perspective on family affairs- for example, Cody is often envious of Ezra because he believes he is Pearl's favorite. The novel ends with Pearl's funeral.
Benjamin DeMott from the New York Times gave Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant an extremely favorable review, saying "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a book to be settled into fully....Funny, heart-hammering, wise, it edges deep into truth that's simultaneously (and interdependently) psychological, moral and formal, deeper than many living novelists of serious reputation have penetrated, deeper than Miss Tyler herself has gone before." Similarly, Anne Taylor has said that she considers Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant her greatest work.
