Ann Tyler - Lunch at the Homesick Restaurant. Gift book bound in leather

The Tull family's disintegration unfolds through the lives of parents and children

Lunch at the Homesick Restaurant is a novel by Ann Tyler, written in 1982 and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Faulkner Prize and the American Book Award for Fiction. This work is a story of an American family that loses its internal connections under the influence of the dehumanizing forces of bourgeois civilization and eventually disintegrates.

The book covers a huge time layer of the life of the American Tull family, parents and their children. It vividly describes the images of each character, including the mother of the Pearl Tull family, her daughter Jenny, son Ezra, and son Cody. The author casually mentions that one year, two or five years have passed, emphasizing that events could have happened earlier.

Throughout the book, the reader can sympathize and feel sympathy for different characters, and these feelings can change as the plot progresses. In the beginning, it may be Pearl Tull, who got a difficult share and who should raise a family. Then it could be Jenny, who is unlucky in life and who is trying to figure out if she will find her happiness. Or it could be Ezra's quiet son, absorbed in working at a restaurant. Finally, it can be Cody, who strives with all his might for success and self-affirmation in this world.