Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club

Description

“Stradal serves up another saga of food and family, hurt and healing, pitched between cliff-hanger moments. . . that make the pages fly.” —People

From the New York Times bestselling author J. Ryan Stradal, a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families in rustic Minnesota, and the legacy of love and tragedy, of hardship and hope, that unites and divides them

    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.Praise for Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club:

“Stradal serves up another saga of food and family, hurt and healing, pitched between cliff-hanger moments. . . that make the pages fly.” 
—People

“This is a perfect book.”
—Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Not That Bad

“Stradal…displays his gift for writing female characters who are fully realized, sometimes unlikable, but always as flawed and compelling as real people. The Midwest setting is written with love and respect, and while the story is often heartbreakingly sad, there’s also real warmth and comfort in Stradal’s writing. A loving ode to supper clubs, the Midwest, and the people there who try their best to make life worth living.”
—Kirkus (starred)

“Stradal’s novels…always resonate…He explores universal themes: love, loss, regrets for one’s past mistakes, and longings for what might have been—plus, of course, the importance of family.”
—Publishers Weekly

“In his previous two novels. . . J. Ryan Stradal writes fetchingly of three lovely things: inventive food, craft beer and Minnesota. [Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club] possesses these same ingredients with added dashes of grief, estrangement, resignation and love. In other words, it’s everything on the menu.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“An interwoven narrative that feels heartfelt and true, suffused with affection for this place and its people past and present. I can’t wait for my next trip back home to Stradal’s Minnesota.”
—Bookreporter.com

“This gratifying multi-generational story of two families who own restaurants in northern Minnesota serves up a bounty of humor, heartache, and affection. J. Ryan Stradal’s novel celebrates community, forgiveness, progress, and finding one’s own way.”
—Christian Science Monitor

Praise for The Lager Queen of Minnesota:

“This charmer of a tale is a loving ode to the Midwest, the power of persistence and, perhaps above all, beer. . . Warm, witty and–like any good craft beer–complex, the saga delivers a subtly feminist and wholly life-affirming message.”
—People

“This generous spirit makes The Lager Queen of Minnesota a pleasure to read and the perfect pick-me-up on a hot summer day.”
—Washington Post

“Delightfully intoxicating. . . will make you smile with its droll humor, and its poignant moments will stop you to reread and confirm that they are really that good. In beer-geek slang, Stradal’s novel is ‘crushable’ — easygoing, well-balanced, super-drinkable with tons of flavor … and will make you go back for more.” 
—USA Today

“In Stradal’s follow-up to his best-selling debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, the Minnesota native’s energetic prose once again captures the optimism of the heartland.”
—Time Magazine

“Complex female characters, tragedies, and descriptions. . . will awaken all your senses. . . The book is The Lager Queen of Minnesota, but this release could cement J. Ryan Stradal as the King of Midwestern novels.” 
—Entertainment Weekly

“I read J. Ryan Stradal’s Kitchens of the Great Midwest on a flight. I buckled my seatbelt, opened the book and when I looked up again, the flight attendant was asking if I needed assistance getting off the plane. I didn’t, but now you know the spell this author can cast. He does it again with The Lager Queen of Minnesota.”
—Elisabeth Egan for The New York Times

“The fortunes and foibles of a brewery mirror the relationship between two sisters tussling over a family farm in this quirky, enchanting novel reminiscent of Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres.” 
—O Magazine

“Everything about this book satisfies — from how the characters grow to how beer-making is described to Stradal’s hilarious assessment of lagers vs. IPAs. You may never drink a beer in ignorance again.” 
—The Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Wonderful. . . Stradal’s gift for getting the reader to invest in these lives is particularly profound.”
—The Chicago Tribune

“Delightful.” 
—New York Post

“Stradal’s second novel goes down easy. Imbued with Midwestern references and the importance of a ‘can-do’ attitude, this warm, witty novel willappeal to fans of Curtis Sittenfeld and Meg Wolitzer.” 
—Booklist (starred)

“This book tastes great, is quite filling and never bitter.” 
—BookPage (starred)

“Stradal’s writing is sharp and funny while still managing to treat each character with warmth and respect. . .  this is an ultimately hopeful and heartwarming story. . . . Readers will love watching these truly original characters overcome their challenges and take care of each other. An absolutely delightful read, perfect for a summer day with a good beer and a piece of pie.” 
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Refreshing. . .This story about how a family business succeeds with generations of strong and determined women at the helm makes for a sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but always winning novel.”
—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Kitchens of the Great Midwest:

“An impressive feat of narrative jujitsu. . . that keeps readers turning the pages too fast to realize just how ingenious they are.”
—The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Pick

“This is a book that made me want to have a more full and colorful life, a life with cookbooks and a well-used kitchen, and to delight at all the goodness that can be put in front of us.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“A sweet and savory treat.” 
—People

“The author’s gentle skewering of foodie snobs (from county fair doyennes to the vegan/gluten-free/soy-free police) is spot on, and the blend of humor, warmth, and longing that he uses to portray family relationships make the book insightful and endearing. Savor it page by page.”
—Oprah.com

“Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a terrific reminder of what can be wrested from suffering and struggle – not only success, but also considerable irony, a fair amount of wisdom and a decent meal.”
—Jane Smiley, The Guardian

“Warning: this will make you hungry. . . . You won’t be able to put it down. And it will up your kitchen game.”
—The Skimm

“Garrison Keillor’s got nothing on [J. Ryan Stradal]!”
—’Here and Now’, NPR

“A tender coming-of-age story with a mix of finely rendered pathos and humor.”
—Washington Post

“Stradal’s debut novel tackles foodie culture with all the finesse of a pastry chef… Reading Kitchens is all pleasure.” 
—LA Magazine

“Foodies and those who love contemporary literature will devour this novel that is being compared to Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. A standout.” 
—Library Journal (starred review)

“[Kitchens of the Great Midwest is] the first novel about the emergence and current state of foodie culture… Fundamentally, [it’s] about what happens when opposing personalities coexist: those who bake with real butter versus those who don’t, those who obsess over heirloom tomatoes alongside those who don’t even know what they are. It uses these categories as a way to look at one of the most confusing, liberating truths there is, which is that often the people we think we’re the least like are the ones we end up needing the most.” 
–Book Forum 

“[A] delicious debut from Stradal.. . Food and family intertwine in this promising debut that features triumph, heartbreak, and even recipes.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Stradal’s first novel is a refreshing and brisk read, with a sophisticated sense of such glories of foodie culture as open-pollinated heirloom corn, pan-seared Walleye and Caesar Cardini’s original Caesar Salad.”
—BBC.com

“Stradal’s debut is charming, rife with hardy, self-deprecating humor, but in Kitchens of the Great Midwest [Stradal] really proves his mettle as a novelist to look out for.”
—Bustle.comJ. Ryan Stradal is the author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest and national bestsellers The Lager Queen of Minnesota and Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club. 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 Indies Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives in California with his family.

1. To what extent does Florence’s childhood help explain her behavior as an adult, and her relationship with Mariel? What positive and negative attributes did she carry through to her later years? Discuss.

2. After Florence and Gustav spend a memorable night together for their tenth anniversary, Florence goes for a walk to the Lakeside property, where Al lives in one of the cabins. What do you think happens, if anything? Do you believe that Al is Mariel’s biological father?

3. For his entire life, Ned expects to take over Jorby’s, his family’s restaurant chain, but he’s ultimately passed over. Do you think the chain would’ve been successful if he had been put in charge? Why or why not? In what situations do you think he thrives?

4. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club delves into the complicated topics of male and female infertility and IVF, the trauma we inherit, and the legacies we leave behind. Do you think any character in the novel—Mariel, Florence, Ned, Betty, Julia—should have made a different decision at any point, given their circumstances?

5. Family is at the heart of this novel, and everyone feels the repercussions when disaster strikes. Who do you think is responsible for what happened to Gus, if anyone? Do you feel that Mariel is justified in blaming her mother?

6. If Gus had lived, do you believe he’d have been running a supper club or a restaurant chain, or neither? If Betty Miller had survived another twenty years, does that change your answer?

7. What do you think Mariel gets from her friendship with Brenda that she’s been missing? Do you think she is content in her marriage to Ned? Why or why not?

8. Were you familiar with Midwestern supper clubs before? What about them sounds appealing to you? Is there a traditional-style restaurant that you or your family return to time and again? If so, what draws you back?

9. The Lakeside Supper Club has existed for almost a hundred years by the time Julia sells it. Do you think she makes the right choice for herself and for her family? What else could she have done?

One

Mariel, 1996

Mariel Prager believed in heaven, because she’d been there once, so far. She’d like to report that it looks an awful lot like Minnesota. The next best place to heaven, in her experience, was a type of restaurant found in the upper Midwest called a supper club. When she walked into a good one, she felt both welcome and somewhere out of time. The decor would be old-fashioned, the drinks would be strong, and the dining experience would evoke beloved memories, all for a pretty decent price.

Since she was a kid, Mariel had spent countless days at Floyd and Betty’s Lakeside Supper Club on scenic Bear Jaw Lake, Minnesota. The place wasn’t particularly scenic itself, just a one-story brown wooden building with bright red front doors and tall windows on the side facing the lake. The sign outside read fine dining at a fine value since 1919, and because everyone trusts neon, fulfilling that promise was the duty of the owner, which, for the past two weeks, had been Mariel. On her watch, a proper supper club meal began with a free relish tray and basket of bread, followed by a round of brandy old-fashioneds, and then a lavish amount of hearty cuisine, with fish on Fridays, prime rib on Saturdays, and grasshoppers for dessert.

Before he died, Mariel’s grandpa Floyd had told her that she was ready to take over sole ownership, but this morning, she wished that someone else-anyone else-were in charge instead. After locking the front door of her house, Mariel wanted to hurl her body into the lake and float away.

For a long time, she’d simply managed the Lakeside’s bar. It was a job she’d kept since becoming the owner, because it was the greatest watering hole in the north. It was loud and smoky, her hands were never dry, she never sat down, and she loved it. Every summer weekend, the horseshoe-shaped bar and its wood-paneled lounge were packed with people fresh from fishing boats and softball games and cars that had driven up from the Cities. It was a place where people chose to be on the most memorable nights of their lives, and it was a pleasure to be at the center of it all.

After what happened last night, though, she wasn’t up for any of it, but that didn’t matter. If she wasn’t standing behind the bar when it opened at 5:00 p.m., people would talk.

Mariel’s quiet, peaceful commute to work had always been her favorite part of the day. From door to door, it took exactly fifty-four seconds-the time it takes to make a perfect old-fashioned-to walk at an ordinary pace down her driveway, across a county road, up the gravel shoulder, and into the paved parking lot. It had her two favorite smells, the sharp, earthy tang of pine trees on one end, and the stubborn mix of stale cigarette smoke and fry grease on the other, smells she’d always associated with belonging and pleasure. If she spotted an animal en route, she’d give it a name, like that day, when she saw a squirrel she named Pronto. Most important, if she could make it from home to the supper club without any interruption, it’d be a good day, guaranteed. The day before, her husband, Ned, stopped her in the driveway to kiss her before he left for the weekend, and it had been the worst day in a long time.

That morning, Mariel almost made it. She was a few steps into the Lakeside’s parking lot when someone ruined her day.

“Mariel!” a woman’s voice bellowed from a white station wagon. It was Hazel, the oldest of her regulars from the bar.

Mariel sighed, and turned to face her. “How ya doing, Hazel?”

“Better than I deserve,” Hazel replied. “So, where’d you go last night? You just up and vanished on us.”

“I was feeling sick, so I went home early.” That’s all Hazel needed to know.

“Oh, jeez. Food poisoning?”

Mariel just decided to nod.

Hazel responded with a brief, exaggerated grimace. “Well, you look all right today. By the way, nice T-shirt.”

Mariel had to look down to remember what she was wearing. It was a Bruce Springsteen concert shirt from sixteen years ago. Maybe the last time she’d been to a concert.

“Thanks. Well, I should get to work.”

“One more thing. Your mother called me. She needs a ride home from church, and wants to know if you can do it.”

Mariel hadn’t seen her mother for more than a decade, until two weeks before at Floyd’s burial and wake. They’d made eye contact, briefly, but still hadn’t spoken to each other.

“Why didn’t she just call me?” Mariel asked.

“She said she tried three times, and it rang and rang.”

Mariel had been to see her doctor that morning, so it’s possible her mother’s claim was true, but when she’d been at home, no one had called.

“Why can’t whatever friend she’s staying with just drive her?” The last Mariel heard, her mother had been hopping around the guest rooms of various childhood friends since Floyd’s funeral. The fact that Florence hadn’t gone back home to Winona by now was unsettling. Something was up.

“She specifically wanted you.” Hazel looked pleased, which was a bad sign. “I’ve known your mom for sixty years. It’s time, Mariel. At our age, none of us knows how much time we have.”

Mariel hated it when older people played that card, especially on behalf of other older people. In her experience, it was true of everyone, at every age.

“I’ll think about it.”

Was she really going to do this today? She noticed a yellow-bellied sapsucker in the tree above, its red-capped head darting around, no doubt planning even further destruction of her trees in its godless little mind. Then she noticed another, one branch above. Maybe they were gathering their forces, and would soon descend in a cute fog of pestilence, and wipe out the forests, the buildings, the people, everything. Then it would be a lot quieter around here, and she could finally have a relaxing Saturday.

“Don’t think too long,” Hazel laughed. “Can’t keep Florence Stenerud waiting.”

Despite not living anywhere near Bear Jaw for fifty years, Mariel’s mother was still widely known, somehow loved, and often feared there. It was well known that anyone who disappointed Florence in the slightest, anyone who inconvenienced her or failed to meet her expectations, would have a swarm of baseless rumors unleashed after them in retaliation. Consequently, Mariel was certain that not collecting her mother in a timely fashion from the Our Savior’s Lutheran Church pancake breakfast would mean half the town would soon hear that Mariel had been badly injured in a car accident, or was trapped beneath a fallen tree, or had caught a rare, incurable illness, or was getting a divorce, or some heady cocktail of the above.

Mariel checked her watch. It was ten o’clock. “How long do I have, Hazel?”

“The pancake breakfast goes until eleven, but she’d like to be picked up by ten thirty.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Mariel said, surprising even herself.

When thinking of how she’d eventually speak with her mother, Mariel had long imagined a tear-streaked deathbed reconciliation, followed by a few decades of regret, and that sounded fine. But maybe it was time, as Hazel said. Mariel was bound for a bad day anyway.

The actual town of Bear Jaw was seven miles from Bear Jaw Lake, in a move the region’s invasive Europeans clearly did to confuse future tourists, of which there were now many. At this hour, at least most tourists and lake people were at their cabins, so traffic into town wouldn’t be unbearable. Besides a green Borglund Services septic truck up ahead of her, the only other person Mariel had seen going her way was a fiftyish woman with bright silver-streaked hair on a silver bicycle.

Mariel’s car radio was playing an interesting song about a guy who wanted to be killed because he was a loser. She flipped through the stations until she landed on a song by Mariah Carey, which was fine, or at least better.

Mariel had actually braced herself to speak with her mom at the funeral. There was just never a moment when Florence was standing alone without people around. Over the years, there were times she’d felt an urge to call, when a normal, well-adjusted person would’ve called a normal, well-adjusted mother. But Mariel could never bring herself to do it. Two weeks ago, Mariel had important news, news she didn’t want her mother receiving from another source. She was pregnant. Or had been, until last night.

She hadn’t told her husband yet. Ned was still down in the Cities, watching ball games with his college buddies through the weekend. She would wait. Ned saw Tim, Erick, and Doug only once or twice a year, and she didn’t want to ruin his good time with them.

Her doctor, Theresa Eaton, had said if a miscarriage happened, it would likely occur in the first twelve weeks. Hers happened at six weeks and two days, at work, right after the kitchen closed. She’d seen spotting earlier that day, and called Theresa, who said it was normal.

“See you in a few days,” Theresa had said. “To check for the heartbeat.”

But that night, as Mariel was making a Midori sour for a customer, she started feeling a sudden, stabbing pain. She ran to the bathroom, locked the stall door and sat down, her head spinning. It felt like her insides fell out. She knew before she could bring herself to look. Her entire body wanted to scream. She put her fist in her mouth, and cried as quietly as possible, to not bother anyone.

Once she cleaned up, Mariel snuck out the back, without telling anybody. She’d apologize later and tell everyone she got sick, she told herself. Mariel thought of her two seasonal bar employees and hoped they wouldn’t think poorly of her. As she pushed the rear door open, she’d never felt colder or lonelier.

Outside, she smelled fresh cigarette smoke. She was relieved to see it was Big Al, who’d been a chef at the Lakeside since before Mariel was born. Once, she’d wanted to be a chef herself, and Floyd and Big Al had taught her how to cook everything that kitchen served. He was probably the closest thing she had to family, apart from Ned.

“Leaving early?” Big Al asked, surprised.

“Stomach bug,” she told him, intentionally looking away. If he saw her face, he’d know she was lying. Why had she told him about the pregnancy so early? She knew better. But she’d been so happy, and that was impossible to hide from him too.

“Need me to close up?”

“Yeah,” she said, but couldn’t keep the sadness from her voice.

“Oh no,” he said, as if he knew.

She almost broke down and told him everything. Instead, she apologized, and walked home in the dark.

Maybe she wouldn’t tell anyone. She’d lost a baby, but that’s not the way most people would see it. They’d respond in ways that would be crushing. They’d hug her and say It just wasn’t meant to be. They’d say It happens all the time. They’d say You can try again! They’d say that her friend Cathy’s mom had nine miscarriages over twenty-five years. But they didn’t know all that Mariel and Ned had been through just to have this single brief pregnancy. And Cathy’s mom had seven kids. Mariel had none.

What was most devastating was that Mariel had been fine without a child. And she would’ve been, indefinitely, she knew it. For years, it was just Ned and her, and everything was good. Once they decided to have a baby, it was all Mariel could think about-even after learning about each of their fertility issues and how difficult it would be. After all the time and money spent, and procedures they endured, here she was. Not back to where she started, because there’s no such thing. Her body would either bear a child or bear a loss. Either way, the space was made.

Unspoken, then, the loss burned through her memories, desperate for blame. She’d found one culprit. Mariel never touched the bar garnishes other than to serve them, but Friday night, two hours before the miscarriage, she felt suddenly hungry, and with her usual healthy snacks twenty feet away in her office, she lazily ate three green Maraschino cherries. For months, she’d ingested only things that were specifically good for fertility, and never touched anything artificial. Much later, she’d find out that they wouldn’t have made a difference, but that didn’t matter then. It was her single break from a routine. Now all the green cherries were in the trash, and would never appear in her bar again.

It was all because of those cherries, she’d told herself. It wasn’t that Ned’s sperm had almost no motility or that she had a vanishing number of follicles. It wasn’t the extra pounds they carried or the excessive alcohol they’d once drunk or the fact that she was almost thirty-nine. She could forgive her faulty, mutinous body and move on, because she must. But until then, she’d tell no one.

Mariel was sure that if her mother ever found out that she’d miscarried, Florence would subject her to a blizzard of reasons why it was Mariel’s fault, and that was the last thing she needed. For the first time since she’d agreed to pick up her mother, Mariel wondered why she was in such a hurry.

On the radio, Mariah Carey was singing about how a baby will always be a part of her, and the love between her and the baby will never die. Mariel had heard this song a thousand times, but now it was obvious: the person who wrote this song had lost a child. And oh boy, she could hear in Mariah’s voice that she wanted a baby again.

Mariel glanced down to change the station, and when she looked back up, she saw the most beautiful deer running across the road, a flawless Terry Redlin ten-point buck. The instant she pressed the brake, she heard and felt a loud thump, and saw that perfect deer flip in the air and vanish. Then everything went black.

Where was she? Mariel unclenched her hands from the steering wheel and opened her eyes. Her car was idling and on the shoulder, but she didn’t remember pulling over. Was she dead? Someone else would have to pick up Florence. What an inane first thought as a dead person. Maybe this was hell. Or, less intriguingly, maybe she wasn’t dead after all.

Mariel looked in the mirrors; no vehicles were coming from either direction. She didn’t notice her neck was sore until she bent over while exiting her car. When she surveyed the front of her little blue Dodge, she saw the passenger-side headlight and turn signal were smashed, there were scrapes on the front of the wheel well, and part of the radiator grille was busted, but then something else seized her attention.US

Additional information

Weight	19.6 oz
Dimensions	1.2000 × 6.2000 × 9.2700 in
Imprint	Pamela Dorman Books
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09781984881076
ISBN-10	1984881078
Author	J. Ryan Stradal
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC019000, FIC044000
Subjects	bestseller books, literary fiction, books for women, book club picks, gifts for her, mom books, mom gifts, best books, best books 2023, mothers day gifts, fiction books best sellers, book club gifts, kitchens of the great midwest, best books for book clubs, fiction best sellers, j ryan stradal books, the lager queen of minnesota, FIC044000, family, fiction, bestsellers, FIC019000, summer reading, book club books, minnesota, gifts for mom, relationships, novels, beach reads, books for mom, women's fiction, book club, Summer reads, gifts for women