NOVEL

Stewart O’Nan, Last Night at the Lobster. I don’t know how this tough, no-nonsense 2007 novella about the closing of a suburban chain restaurant got past me, but now that I’ve finally caught up with it, Stewart O’Nan is going straight to the top of my catch-up list of contemporary novelists. At first glance there doesn’t seem to be much to it, but before long you realize that you’re reading a deeply serious moral tale whose protagonist, a Red Lobster manager whose marriage is in trouble, is one of the most memorable fictional characters to come to my attention in recent years. Short and wholly to the point, Last Night at the Lobster is a minor masterpiece (TT).