Connie brings us this well-reviewed piece of contemporary holiday fiction available in both print and audiobook formats:
The lobster in the title refers to the chain restaurant, Red Lobster, where the story takes place four days before Christmas in Connecticut, off highway I-9, next door to a run-down mall.
It’s the last day the Red Lobster is open, before corporate closes down the restaurant for good. The main character, manager Manny DeLeon is trying to hold everything together, and I mean everything. A snowstorm descends while Manny tries to keep his workers from deserting him AND satisfy each customer; from the difficult two-year-old, to the unexpected office party, to the busload of Chinese tourists. He also tries to figure out his complicated personal life-he’s in love with a waitress but has a pregnant girlfriend- and buy the perfect Christmas gift.
This is not your typical Christmas story, with a big happy ending. This is a perfect little snapshot of a day in the life of an ordinary working man who is just trying to hold things together and figure things out. I throughly enjoyed
listening to this story, especially after reading “Kitchen Confidential”, by Anthony Bourdain. Characterization of the restaurant help was dead on and the narrator’s portrayal was wonderful. (A note of warning- the language contains four letter words, which fit the characters, but may bother
some listeners).
Check the WRL catalog for availability of Last Night at the Lobster in print
Blogging for a Good Book 
[…] Stewart O’Nan, they are 1 in 1. The first is Last Night at the Lobster (blogged here by Connie), a 147-page story of a restaurant manager whose life and identity are invested in his […]
[…] O’Nan is quite simply one of the best authors writing today. His quiet prose captures ordinary feelings and lifts them up in a light that shows them to be both specific to his characters and universal […]