This book is 145 pages about a Red Lobster’s last day of business. That’s it, that’s the plot. It’s about the people – Manny, the manager, mostly, working the final shift in a closing chain restaurant on the outskirts of a parking lot of a sad, gray mall, just before Christmas during a bleak, snowy New England storm.
It sounds like it shouldn’t be interesting, but it is – I think it’s because it’s obvious that the author really cares. He’s writing with love about the people who keep the sidewalks plowed and the tilapia ready to broil; who show up for their shift even though there would have been no repercussions if they hadn’t; who worry about their exes, their kids, their wives while they wipe down the bar and reset the thermostat; who do their jobs to the best of their ability even though their customers won’t remember them the next day.
Manny, our protagonist, is a loyal and hard worker, although his personal life made me roll my eyes a bit, like get it together dude. His preoccupation with doing right by his workers, his romantic confusion, his methodical way of managing, makes you love this guy who’s just doing his best. The descriptions of the mall will resonate with anyone who’s ever been in a dying American suburb, or looked for a last minute gift in a mall. Even though nothing really happens, the setting and the characters were so easy to slip into – I finished this yesterday and still have that leftover feeling like I myself just got home after eating cheese biscuits at Red Lobster at a mall during a snowstorm. I love a book that can make you feel as if you were physically there, that bring up some measure of nostalgia for a place that you didn’t think you cared about all that much.
