Last Night at the Lobster
By Stewart O'Nan
Viking, 146 pp., $19.95
At first glance, it might seem bizarre that an existential search could occur at a Red Lobster restaurant. But in the gifted hands of Stewart O'Nan, such a quest unfolds superbly in "Last Night at the Lobster," his latest novel.
On the morning of Dec. 20, with a blizzard bearing down on Connecticut and Christmas right around the corner, Manny DeLeon has a problem. The Red Lobster he has managed for years will close tonight, not profitable enough to satisfy its corporate headquarters. His crew has become like a family, warts and all, and they must find a way to get through their final shift together when there is no compelling reason for doing so.
Many of the crew have already left, knowing their days were numbered. Those remaining, with names like Nicolette, Roz, Ty, and Fredo, form an endearing portrait of working-class America, waiting tables, washing dishes, prepping meals, and stocking shelves in the red vinyl world of the Lobster. As the hours pass and snow deepens, their relationships become allegories of purpose in a world without it.
Manny is at the heart of this exploration. His relationship with each character tests his will and skill in telling good from evil, right from wrong, sanity from absurdity, justice from unfairness, kindness from indifference, when the moral and ethical bearings of his life, and of life itself, are as difficult to see as the occasional cars passing by on the snowbound interstate just beyond the Lobster's windows.
His challenge is especially daunting in the choice he must make between Jacquie, a waitress with whom he once had an affair and who has moved on better than he has, and Deena, his pregnant girlfriend waiting for him at home with marriage on her mind. He knows whom he should love, but his decision is not coming easily.
Jacquie, who like others is working the shift out of loyalty to Manny, understood long ago that their relationship would never last and that he should stay with Deena. "And while she was right - is right - sometimes [Manny] wishes she hadn't" come to that realization, O'Nan writes. "Sometimes, selfishly, he wishes she was so lost in him she wouldn't have been able to save them from doing something stupid."
In prose as wondrously spare as the lives of the characters, O'Nan exposes their pathos, a stripped-down fragility made all the more poignant by their fledgling efforts at resilience. These are dutiful characters, with modest dreams and deep humility, yet with a persistent, almost instinctive fortitude that enables them to get up each morning and try again.
"Hey, come on . . . we did the right thing," Jacquie tells Manny at the end of the shift, as they wait in his Buick Regal for her new boyfriend to pick her up. "That's got to count for something." She's alluding to their breakup, but also, in this glimpse at the heart of humanity, to so much more.
Robert Braile reviews regularly for the Globe.
