novel
In the Mariachi Diner is a short novel written through the voices of three characters whose lives in the small town of Thorn Groves are intimately connected. The story takes place on one winter day, in the gritty mill town of Thorn Groves many years after the exceedingly insular Mack, and the restless Angela lost their 9-year-old daughter. The other narrator, Suzanne, is a waitress in the town diner by day and a bartender at the local watering hole by night. She’s as tough as they come, but a chain reaction of poor decisions has her reevaluating life as her middle years approach. She broke up with Mack back when they were teenagers, a decision she still regrets and is reminded of every day. Mack’s one of the most frequent diner’s at the Mariachi. Suzanne now has a daughter who is the same age as the now deceased Cassie, herself a product of one of those bad decisions.
Mack, Angela and Suzanne trudge through the day, evaluating their pasts and searching for the one thing that will give them each the courage to move past their losses—for Mack and Angela the void left by the death of their daughter, for Suzanne the loss of her youth, and the ability to take her life in a different direction.
As the story progresses, it becomes more and more evident that Mack’s largest obstacle is himself. He’s sullen and stubborn, self expression and confrontation are not his strengths. To get his life back he’ll need to break out of the shell he’s cast around himself. Finally allowing himself to see, he looks to the Mariachi singer memorabilia that has begun to appear in the diner as a source for strength. Angela has tried everything. She’s remodeled the house, given herself a makeover, even opened a thriving beauty salon in the center of town. Yet, nothing can satiate the restlessness caused by Cassie’s death and the potential failure of her marriage. Not to mention Adam, the teenage son she and Mack have neglected in so many ways. As her deep look into her own past decisions ensues, her story nears the breaking point. Today is the day she plans to begin the affair with Rich, a young mill executive who frequents her salon.
Suzanne has placed all of her hope in her daughter’s future. But that doesn’t mean that she’s stopped making poor decisions for herself. As the day unfolds, Suzanne finds herself in quite the predicament. She’s having an affair with her married boss at the diner, while steadily coming to the realization that she’s fallen in love with the Roman Catholic priest that has been providing her with counseling on Friday afternoons. Alas, she finds herself looking back at her relationship with Mack and thinking how that one decision, to stay together, would have completely altered the course of both of their lives.
Mack, Angela, and Suzanne are all three on the cusp of losing faith in all the the things they’ve held dear: hope, love, family, tradition. Yet there is hope in the realization that home is just down the road, that love, not lust, will fill the voids, that changing is as easy as putting one foot in front of the other. But have they waited too long to take the first step?
