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When his father contracted a sudden illness that left him paralyzed, Steven Sorrentino stowed away his dreams of Broadway stardom and returned home to West Long Branch, New Jersey, to help his family out. Taking over Clint's Corner, his father's luncheonette, Steven found himself at the grill flipping porkroll, serving a counter full of eccentrics, and confiding in Dolores, the crusty head waitress with a particular flair for butchering the English language. From this unusual post, Steven watched his ailing father who, though confined to his wheelchair, refused to accept defeat and even managed to further his career in local politics. Somehow, the more his father triumphed, the more Steven's own life seemed to stall. Guilty and confused, Steven made a shocking and desperate decision -- not knowing that he was about to stumble upon the secrets of his father's resilience. Luncheonette is an irresistible true story about the unexpected lessons life brings -- and of the inspiration we find in the least likely places.… (more)
User reviews
This memoir of the years Sorrentino spent at the luncheonette, becoming bitter and frustrated as his father faced more and more health setbacks with smiles and grace is an instructive one. He never glosses over his anger about his situation and his disbelief at his father's relentless cheer in the face of so much loss and while it is clear from the book that he has learned a lot from his father's approach to life, Sorrentino lets the reader see just how difficult and hard fought it was for him to come to understand and appreciate the lesson his father taught him about life and persevering in the face of adversity. He is unafraid to come off looking less than his best. To the outside world he was a wonderful and dutiful son but inside he was seething and unhappy.
Cliff Sorrentino is not a fatalist and he goes about living his life to the fullest, without bemoaning his fate. He runs for mayor and triumphs, his paralysis not holding him back, even as Steven continues closing himself off to any attempt to break free of the stultifying, joyless life he's leading behind the luncheonette counter. Sorrentino has a real talent at drawing the character of the regulars at Cliff's Corner. They start out one dimensional as he hopes that his tenure at the luncheonette will be short-lived but he fleshes them out as he gets to know them over the intervening years. Their little ticks and eccentricities go from being mildly entertaining to annoying as Sorrentino's patience with his lot decreases. There's no epiphany here for Sorrentino and his luncheonette years will probably always be tender like a wound but in the end, this is a loving tribute to the man who taught him by example and gave him a new way to live, no matter how hard following that example might have turned out to be. Fans of unconventional memoirs will quite appreciate this book.