Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant

“Well, he wrote. Looks like we made it.” 

After decades apart from one another, Beck is inspired to write to Pearl after witnessing the moon landing. Beck, whose career and life have been gradual, dull failure, takes pleasure in the achievement. He derives vicarious satisfaction from an achievement that he had nothing to do with. Given the lack of success in his own life, becoming emotionally invested in such achievements is all that Beck has left. 

“He was so used to breaking things.” 

Ezra, the dreamy and clumsy figure in the family, takes up the borrow and arrow while everyone watches on. They expect him to fail but, instead, he not only hits the target, but splits apart the arrow that is already lodged in the bull’s-eye. It speaks to Ezra’s character that his first instinct is to apologize, assuming that he has broken the arrow. While the rest of the family is impressed, Ezra is confined even more to his dream world. 

“Neighborhood savages, that’s what you are, mingling with each and all.” 

The novel provides different perspectives on the same period of time. Pearl, reminiscing on her time spent raising the children alone, portrayed herself as battling through with a stoic quietude. Cody’s memory is different, suggesting that Pearl was prone to outbursts of rage and strange, bullying behavior. By providing both perspectives, the novel supplies the reader with a more complete perspective.

“Her mother told her, in an informative and considerate tone of voice, that she was raising Jenny to eat her.” 

As another perspective is introduced to the narrative, the audience begins to understand just how scared the Tull children are of their mother. Pearl’s violent temper terrifies Jenny to the extent that Jenny has nightmares about her mother, in which her mother threatens—in her “informative and considerate tone of voice” (63)—to eat her. Contrasted with Pearl’s nostalgic recollection of the past, her violent streak is all the more pronounced. 

“Ezra’s going to have a place where people come just like to a family dinner.” 

During her conversation with Josiah Payson, Jenny discovers Ezra’s plan to one day open a restaurant. This is revealing in two ways. Firstly, it suggests to Jenny that she may not have known her brother quite as well as she might have assumed. He seems to have confided more in Josiah than he did in her. Secondly, it suggests that Ezra’s ambition is to recreate the sense of family that his own childhood has lacked. His idea for a restaurant is a way for him to vicariously enjoy the idyllic family lives of others and compensate for his own miserable youth. 

“It’s a trash heap. I’m going to strip it to the bones.” 

Now a success, Cody sits at the dinner table and tells his family of his plans to buy and dismantle the Tanner Corporation. Regardless of the veracity of his statement, Cody’s plans reveal a great deal about his character. As a successful businessman, he could have his pick and choose of how to operate. Dismantling the Tanner Corporation seems to be a personal vendetta. It is Cody’s way of demonstrating his worth in comparison to his father; by taking apart the company that ruined Beck’s life, Cody is attempting to imbue himself with worth and measure up to (and exceed) his father’s achievements. 

“Ezra was starting to feel lonely here and would have liked to make a friend.” 

Ezra’s time in the hospital functions as a microcosm of his own life. He attends to a domineering, respectable female figure (his mother and Mrs. Scarlatti) and struggles to make friends with people. The hospital ward—a place where life begins and ends—becomes his life sped up: a series of sincere and awkward encounters that feature Ezra attempting to do the right thing but struggling to equate his own strange nature with the nature of the wider world.

“He was reminded of a time that his mother had nearly died, wounded by a misfired arrow—entirely Ezra’s fault.” 

The third instance of this story in the novel provides the comedic pay off. Thus far, Pearl has blamed Beck and Cody has blamed Ezra. While the two of them are keen to use the incident to ratify their personal prejudices, Ezra cannot help but blame himself. Whether agreeing with Cody’s accusations or genuinely feeling guilty, Ezra is unable to escape his own introverted character. Though he is wrong about who is to blame, his mistake is not motivated by negative reasoning (as with Pearl and Cody).

“Cody, sometimes I stand there watching them and I see they believe they’re completely special, the first, the only people ever to feel the way they’re feeling.” 

Pearl’s life is marked by failed marriages. At this stage in the narrative, she has not only been scarred by her failed marriage to Beck, but she has just returned from a difficult day of dress shopping with Jenny. They bought a dress for Jenny’s second wedding, a choice that was defined by the failed first marriage (in that Pearl believes that this should dictate the color of the dress). Though Pearl may seem cynical about marriage, her life has been defined by the failure of this particular institution. After a lifetime of close proximity to such failure, such cynicism is to be expected. 

“He became obsessed; he developed an almost physical thirst for the sight of her blunt little feet in silver straps.” 

For most of his life, Cody has defined himself in opposition to Ezra. He has always felt a twinge of jealousy for his brother, compounded by being unable to understand Ezra’s character. When it comes to women, the issue is even more complicated, to the extent that Cody has begun to obsess over Ezra’s fiancée. As when they were children, he covets what Ezra has; this is not because Cody actually desires Ruth, but merely because she belongs (in his mind) to Ezra. His obsession is born out of jealousy, rather than lust. 

“What he liked was the competition, the hope of emerging triumphant from a neck-and-neck struggle with Ezra, his oldest enemy.” 

Cody’s obsession with Ruth has finally allowed him to see the true nature of his desire. He now views his love life with the same competitive spirit that he viewed board games. Like when the family played Monopoly, Cody is willing to cheat and resort to unscrupulous measures in order to emerge victorious. He now sees this clearly and is willing to admit that he considers Ezra “his oldest enemy” (131), even if this relationship is entirely unilateral. By obsessing over Ezra’s fiancée, Cody has finally come to a realization about himself. 

“People who leave us will be sorry in the end.” 

Pearl reflects on the damage done by Cody to Ezra; stealing Ruth away has had a big impact on Ezra’s disposition and Pearl cannot help but take this personally. She is also the victim of a broken relationship and she views Cody and Ruth’s betrayal as an extension of Beck’s own betrayal. She tries to fight the battle on Ezra’s behalf, trying to orchestrate a reunion between Ruth and Ezra that never takes hold. She hopes to rekindle love vicariously, Ezra’s abandoned engagement becoming a proxy for her own failed marriage. 

“But he continued watching the other two.” 

When Cody finally brings Ruth home to visit the family, they go to the Homesick Restaurant. Ruth is led into the kitchen by Ezra to meet her former colleagues. While Pearl and Cody talk, Cody becomes consumed by jealousy. Over the course of the rest of this chapter, this jealousy (informed by the nature of the beginning of their relationship) will begin to consume Cody and drive him further from the family. This is built on a foundation of guilt; though Cody might never admit it, he knows deep down that he has wronged Ezra. Because of this, he worries about someone doing exactly the same to him. Rather than a reconciliation, this guilt manifests as anger, jealousy, and—ultimately—a loveless marriage. 

“You just drop by your local Gino’s or McDonald’s. I kind of like it.” 

Despite all of the difficulties in his life, Ezra has never lost his relentless optimism. In this instance, Jenny is somewhat embarrassed to take him to a garish fast food restaurant, but Ezra can see the positive element, complimenting the communal dining experience. It demonstrates that he values food not for the exquisite or expensive tastes, but for the way it can bring people together. Given that he struggles so much to bring his own family together, seeing such communality in others is a relief and an escape for Ezra. 

“Why, the three of us turned out fine, just fine!” 

Jenny’s opinion of the fortunes of herself and her siblings stands in stark contrast to that of Pearl. While Pearl looks at her children and sees only failure, Jenny assures Ezra (and herself, to some extent) that the Tull children “turned out fine” (171). Though she has a string of divorces, Ezra is marked by a bleak loneliness, and Cody has distanced himself from the family, she chooses to see the positives whereas Pearl chooses to see the negatives. 

“Look at me! I’m nothing but a little backwoods Garrett County farm girl, hardly educated. And I’m not so easy to get along with, either.” 

The marital difficulties between Ruth and Cody have been alluded to in earlier chapters. After luring Ruth away from Ezra, Cody seems to replace affection and desire with jealousy. To Ruth, these problems are her fault. She is still stunned that a handsome man like Cody would be interested in her, and any issues they might have are a result of her failing to measure up to his high standards. She is desperate to be loved by a man with such status, which partially explains why Ruth left Ezra, as well as their current troubles. 

“Time is my favorite thing of all.” 

Confined to a bed after a serious accident, Cody talks with his son Luke. Not for the first time, he tells Luke that his favorite thing in the world is time. Given that he has so many regrets in his life—his father’s departure, his mother preferring Ezra, yet-to-manifest guilt about his treatment of Ezra—this seems like an accurate confession. Cody has spent his whole life helping companies refine and perfect their time keeping, informed by his own failures to act correctly in his earlier life. His desire to master time is an expression of his many regrets and his hope to rectify these mistakes. 

“Like some kind of plot where someone decided, long before I was born, I would live out my days surrounded by people who were… nicer than I am, just naturally nicer without even having to try, people that other people preferred; and everywhere I go there’s something, just that goddamn forgiving smile or some demented folk song floating out a window—” 

After noticing his son’s similarity to Ezra, Cody is driven mad. The guilt within him festers and he finally vocalizes the resentment he feels toward his brother, projecting his feelings for his brother onto his son. Luke knows only a small portion of the true relationship between the siblings and is worried about his father’s judgement. Even when being honest, Cody has the ability to utterly destroy his son’s emotional well-being without even thinking about it. The lack of consideration he takes with such outbursts signifies his truly narcissistic personality type.

“The divorce has come as a shock and I’m just, oh, traveling back.” 

Luke meets Dan, an English teacher, and his son, who are driving across the country and revisiting the fellow students with whom the man had a relationship (or even knew) in his graduating class. This journey becomes a parallel to the time machine discussed by Cody earlier in the chapter. Dan is traveling back through the past, meeting up with the lost relationships and trying to rekindle old flames. He is returning to the regrettably lost relationships of his earlier life, just like Cody imagines. The chance to go back and rectify mistakes is exactly what Cody covets; Dan becomes a reflection of Cody’s impossible desires. 

“She was still pretending they were merely sorting.” 

With Pearl’s vision failing her, Ezra functions as the gatekeeper to his mother’s memories. Due to her stubborn personality, he cannot state this outright. When Pearl wishes to remember, the pair must concoct an elaborate cover story. In this instance, they are sorting through old photographs. Rather than sorting, Ezra is describing the memories and allowing his mother to relive her past vicariously. That Ezra maintains the pretense demonstrates his affection for his mother and the obligation he feels toward helping her. 

“His mother stopped rocking and grew very still.” 

Pearl has sacrificed her life for her children. For decades, she has lived a mundane existence without friends or hobbies. In her old age, she asks her son to read from the diaries, right up until he finds the moment that she has been searching for: an entry in which she described a moment when she was “absolutely happy” (237). The moment itself is inconsequential; Pearl is doing chores in the garden on a sunny day. In retrospect, it is reassuring. It demonstrates to Pearl that her life has not been a waste, that she has—at one time, at least—been happy. As her memories fail her, this assurance becomes all the more important. 

“Cody couldn’t figure how anyone could feel close to his mother—not counting Ezra, who was thought by some to be a saint.

Even after Pearl dies, Cody’s relationship with his mother is complicated. He does not feel sad, as such, but feels the weight of the occasion pressing down on him. However, even as they drive to the funeral, he is unable to separate his feelings about his mother from his feelings about Ezra. Even when thinking about how people felt about Pearl, he invites immediate comparison to Ezra. In Cody’s view, Ezra was the saint, the son who stayed loyal to their mother. Cody still feels guilt for being so far away from his family and acting so destructively, but he cannot bring himself to realize this. 

“‘Oh?’ said Cody, politely. ‘Have you been away?’” 

Moments after Beck tells Cody that he is proud of what Cody has achieved, Cody delivers a barbed comment designed to point to his father’s departure many years ago. Invited to the funeral and reunited with his family, Beck seems pleased. As struck by Cody was of his father’s comment regarding pride, he cannot just give up a grudge. Cody is caught between admitting the true impact of his father’s comment and forgiving him for leaving. To allow the former would be to allow the latter, so Cody lashes out instead