The Restaurant Reviewer

THE RESTAURANT REVIEWER is a novel about the goodness of food, the meaning of love. Its mood is tender and deep, embracing the unexpected joy of young love, the grief of loss, and the coming to terms with both; its characters struggle to find meaning in work, love, human connection.The story is set in a landmark New York City restaurant. It describes the connected fate of lovers who meet there, and have met there in the past, and is narrated by the restaurant reviewer for a major city newspaper. Dedicated to the people of New York City, it was originally published on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as a tribute to the city's beauty and richness of humanity. Kindle ebook $.99; paper $12.95. Reading preview:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005L9B61WTHE RESTAURANT REVIEWER focuses on an old family-owned restaurant in lower Manhattan whose devoted chef and proprietor, Matthias Constantine, has collapsed from a stroke. The question then facing his family and friends is whether, and how, his restaurant can survive. The answers explore a cook's connections to place, memory, and the passage of time.Matthias Constantine has spent his life preparing and refining the fare at Booths, a steakhouse on the Bowery that was founded by his immigrant grandfather and is now the clubhouse of City Hall politicians. His only help in the kitchen in the years since his wife died has been Armand Fenner, a young protege who lived on the streets as an abandoned child until Matthias rescued him.Matthias's son, Damian, witnessed the death of his mother in a car crash in front of the restaurant and took off for the West Coast as soon as he could to escape from the memory. He returned a dozen years later to leverage the restaurant's real estate into lucrative investments for himself. In his plan he enlisted the help of Tally Lee, a powerful politician who first came to Booths as a teenager to work as a waitress. While waiting on tables she befriended a City Council candidate, bore his daughter; and subsequently rose in Manhattan politics to become a Party boss.The stroke leaves Matthias weakened, but this leads to his restaurant's renewal. Damian hires a manager to assist his father, a disillusioned doctor who wants a different life and finds it at Booths. The doctor, while trying to increase the restaurant's business, unwittingly turns it into a venue that nurtures romance between Tally's beloved daughter, Benita, a talented singer, and Matthias's kitchen protege, Fenner. By creating beautiful dishes to please Benita, Fenner brings the restaurant to new heights--and threatens those who would destroy and forget it.The ambitions, fears, conflicts, and hopes of these people are narrated by the title character, Shaylie Drinan, the restaurant reviewer for a major newspaper, who finds herself drawn inexorably into the survival of Booths.The resolution she brings to the story affirms the goodness of food, the meaning of love.---------------------The author, Nao Hauser, is a journalist and novelist who has written about restaurants in New York City and all over the world for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, and many other magazines and newspapers. She lives in Manhattan, where the devastation she witnessed on 9/11 inspired her to express in The Restaurant Reviewer her appreciation of the enduring beauty of New York City, its culture, history, and richness of experience. She can be reached at [email protected].