The effects of a father’s abandonment of his family. The book has 3 themes and each of them is emphasized at different parts of the book: 1. I was blown over by the eccentric characters in her The Accidental Tourist but I admired how she narrated the flight of the Tull family in this book, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Her settings are all in heartland USA (Baltimore, mostly) and so, reading her books feels like you are watching afternoon drama series of American families, regardless of how dysfunctional or typical they are. She writes with so much clarity and her characters are so interesting you could almost see, feel, smell and taste them. The two Alices - McDemott and Munro - won my heart but not enough motivation for me to look, buy and read their other books right away.Īnne Tyler is different. Of course, I loved Virginia Woolf, Emilie Bronte, Muriel Sparks, Carlson McCullers, Flannery O’Brien, and Iris Murdoch but they are all dead. Here is Anne Tyler who I never thought to be an author I would enjoy reading.Ī couple of years back, with only 200+ read books, I was having a hard time naming my favorite contemporary female authors. The whole experience is like finding a gold mine. Then last Friday, when I was winding down with the second book, I bought Breathing Lessons and I am now reading it.

After reading her The Accidental Tourist I went to the bookstore and bought Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and read right away. Just like the saying when it rains, it pours, I am having an Anne Tyler Book Festival. This is my first time to read 3 books by an author in succession: one, two, three.

Dinner at the homesick restaurant book