Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal
Expected Pub. date: April 18, 2023 – Pamela Dorman Books
Review book courtesy of the publisher
Description:
Mariel Prager needs a break. Her husband Ned is having an identity crisis, her spunky, beloved restaurant is bleeding money by the day, and her mother Florence is stubbornly refusing to leave the church where she’s been holed up for more than a week. The Lakeside Supper Club has been in her family for decades, and while Mariel’s grandmother embraced the business, seeing it as a saving grace, Florence never took to it. When Mariel inherited the restaurant, skipping Florence, it created a rift between mother and daughter that never quite healed.
Ned is also an heir—to a chain of home-style diners—and while he doesn’t have a head for business, he knows his family’s chain could provide a better future than his wife’s fading restaurant. In the aftermath of a devastating tragedy, Ned and Mariel lose almost everything they hold dear, and the hard-won victories of each family hang in the balance. With their dreams dashed, can one fractured family find a way to rebuild despite their losses, and will the Lakeside Supper Club be their salvation?
In this colorful, vanishing world of relish trays and brandy Old Fashioneds, J. Ryan Stradal has once again given us a story full of his signature honest, lovable yet fallible Midwestern characters as they grapple with love, loss, and marriage; what we hold onto and what we leave behind; and what our legacy will be when we are gone. (publisher)
My take:
This is a story about people finding their way in life – figuring out a path or simply following one that’s been laid out. A supper club is passed from one generation to the next which will hopefully keep it all going. But times change and not everyone shares the same dream. I grew up in the upper Midwest and that included going to supper clubs – something I didn’t realize was a unique experience. This novel brought back a lot of memories. It’s a satisfying story of family and all the ups and downs of life.
About the author:
J. Ryan Stradal is the author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest and national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Granta, The Rumpus, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, won the American Booksellers Association Indie’s Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year. His next novel, Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, is forthcoming. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives in California with his family.
Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, and two novellas, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer and The Deal of a Lifetime, as well as one work of nonfiction, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World. His books are published in more than forty countries. His latest novel is Anxious People. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Twitter @BackmanLand or on Instagram @Backmansk.
GRETCHEN ANTHONY is the author of 
Catherine Adel West is a writer/editor living on the South Side of Chicago. Her experience as a black woman shapes every aspect of her writing and she is sure to be a voice for many women. Her work has been published in Black Fox Literary Magazine, Five2One, Better than Starbucks, Doors Ajar, 805 Lit + Art, The Helix Magazine, Lunch Ticket, and most recently Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal. Saving Ruby King is her debut novel.
Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times bestselling author whose novels include The Bookshop at Water’s End, The Idea of Love, Driftwood Summer, The Art of Keeping Secrets, and Between the Tides.
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