Lessons from ‘The Homesick Restaurant’

Anne Tyler's "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant"

The kids are heading back to school this month, some of them full of hope and others full of dread. So here’s a little story about bravery in the classroom involving the great writer Anne Tyler, who happens to live in Baltimore, and a young student named Melanie Olesker, who happens to be my daughter.

The story goes back a while, to Melanie’s first year of college. I won’t say which college, except to tell you it’s located on York Road in the heart of Towson.

Anyway, Melanie had an intimidating freshman English professor who assigned the reading of Tyler’s wonderful novel, “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.” Actually you can call most of Tyler’s novels wonderful. For one thing, they’re usually about Baltimore, which swells the heart. For another, she’s a novelist who almost every other novelist — jealous types, at best — admires greatly. John Updike said Tyler wasn’t just good, but “wickedly good.”

But let’s go back to that freshman English class and my daughter’s professor who assigned “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.” The assignment was fine except for one thing. He wanted everybody to write a paper analyzing symbolism in the book.

And my daughter, having read the whole thing, grew anxious and overwhelmed because she simply didn’t see any symbolism in the book, and imagined this was a signal that she didn’t belong in college.

But she got a great idea. She knew Tyler lived in Baltimore, so she gathered every ounce of courage and decided she’d call the author at home and ask her directly, “Can you tell me about symbolism in the book?”

Tyler had just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It’s one of many national awards she’s won for her writing, and just one reason why the thought of some 18-year-old kid deciding, unannounced, to call upon one of the greats of literature is an absurd overreach. And yet, it’s a lesson to every student: don’t be afraid to take a chance.

Tyler wasn’t listed in the phone book, but she dedicated “Homesick” to her husband, and his name and number were listed. So Melanie, with her heart pounding, called that number, and a female voice answered.

“Is this Anne Tyler?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Anne Tyler the novelist?”

“Yes.”

“Hi,” my daughter said, as though they were old friends. And Tyler, charming as could be, said how nice it was to hear from her, at which point Melanie got down to business. “My college professor,” she said, “wants us to write a paper on symbolism in ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.’”

“He does?” Tyler said. “There is no symbolism in ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.’”

“There isn’t?” Melanie said. “I didn’t think so, but …”

“What is it with all these English professors?” Tyler said. “They’re always talking about symbolism when there isn’t any.”

So my daughter, overreaching perhaps slightly, said, “Could you come to class with me tomorrow and tell this to my professor?”

Oy.

This, of course, was too much. Tyler, who’s rarely given interviews over the years, said she would love to but begged off, with an excuse about being a little shy for such a thing. But she encouraged Melanie to pass on her comments to her entire class.

So the next day, when the professor said, “Let’s talk about symbolism in ‘Dinner,’” my daughter raised her hand and declared with great confidence, “There is no symbolism in the book.”

“Who told you that?” replied the professor, barely hiding a sneer.

“Anne Tyler,” said my daughter.

“Uh, see me after class,” said the professor.

I told Melanie she was either going to get an A or an F in that class. She got a B, which I considered a triumph.

Kids, there’s your first lesson as you return to school this month. Don’t let any teacher intimidate you. And don’t let anything at all deter you from reaching for the truth of things.

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” has just been reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

 

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