CBR15 BINGO (Edibles square: If you consider Red Lobster edible, I guess? Set in a restaurant.)
Manny is the manager of a Red Lobster that’s being downsized. At the last lunch and dinner service, he’s convinced a few of his staff members to come in and work even though an impending snowstorm will most likely scare customers away. Whether begrudgingly, out of loyalty, or needing that last paycheck, the employees trickle in, including a few whom Manny was not able to secure jobs for at the Olive Garden he is being transferred to. As the snow piles up outside a handful of customers trickle in: a local retired coach who orders tilapia every day for lunch, last-minute holiday shoppers with the world’s most obnoxious kid, and a large group assembled for an office retirement send-off.
The book is told through Manny and is mostly a reflection on the politics of the workplace: the career waitress, the underrated but temperamental cook, the disabled young man who works harder than them all, and the woman he loves but cannot have. With the move to Olive Garden looming and a pregnant girlfriend he doesn’t love, Manny looks back at a decade spent cleaning up spills, placating unreasonable customers, and managing a rag-tag group that is as frustrating as they are loveable.
O’Nan does a perfect job of capturing the working-class environment. This book is set in Connecticut but feels very rust belt to me, probably because O’Nan grew up in Western Pennsylvania around the same time as I did (he’s just a handful of years older than me). I know these people, worked with them and went to school with them. Reading his books is a little visiting my roots.
