Dinner at the Restaurant

Anne Tyler, a writer from Minneapolis, is known for her ability to explore the ways in which "unexceptional" people create families out of what is seemingly a hopeless muddle of failed or failing relationships. This is exactly what she does with the Tull family in her novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Throughout the novel a striking image emerges of Pearl Tull caused by her many trying circumstances; her husband left her with three children …

…the new bonds that arose from that dinner. I think that Anne Tyler was successful in making this dysfunctional group unite as a family at the end. Forced to grow up with a difficult childhood, Cody, Ezra, and Jenny suffered many wounds to the heart, but many years later they were able to look past their hardships. Tyler sees life, friends, family, and time as extensions of the individual in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.