Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club (2023) is the third novel by American author J. Ryan Stradal, following Kitchens of the Great Midwest (2016) and The Lager Queen of Minnesota (2019). Stradal has also published numerous short stories. His works, which focus on food and family in the Midwest, have been praised for their realistic, imperfect characters and their clear love for Minnesota, Strada’s home state.

This guide references the 2023 Viking e-book edition.

Content Warning: This novel references infertility, pregnancy loss, child death, abuse, racism, sexism, and anti-gay bias.

Plot Summary

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club unfolds across four narrators with interconnected lives but distinct timelines. Three of these narrators and timelines intertwine: Mariel Prager’s story spans 1996-2000; Florence Miller, Mariel’s mother, spans 1934-1976; Mariel’s husband, Ned Prager, spans 1981-1986; and Mariel and Ned’s daughter, Julia, spans 2000 to the present. The first three narrators’ storylines are internally linear but presented non-chronologically, in alternating chapters. Julia’s narration makes up the novel’s last two chapters.

In 1996, Mariel Prager has recently inherited Floyd and Betty’s Lakeside Supper Club after the death of her grandfather, Floyd. Mariel lives in Bear Jaw Lake, Minnesota, with her husband, Ned, who is away for the weekend. The morning after losing her pregnancy, Mariel is summoned to Bear Jaw’s church to retrieve her estranged mother, Florence. On the way, she hits a deer. Another Bear Jaw resident, Brenda Kowalsky, helps her butcher the dead deer; instead of retrieving her mother, Mariel decides to spend the day with Brenda and her son, Kyle.

In 1934, Florence is 12 years old. She is woken in the night by her mother, Betty, who urges haste, as they are fleeing a landlord demanding rent. These nighttime flights are a common occurrence, frustrating Florence. After being robbed while they sleep outside a gas station, Betty and Florence hitchhike to a restaurant in Red Wing, Minnesota. There they meet Floyd Muller, who owns the Lakeside, a restaurant farther north. Floyd offers them a ride and Betty a job.

In 1980, Ned Prager reflects on his lifelong love of Jorby’s, the chain his family owns. Though he dislikes the cutbacks that came with the massive expansion of what was once a small, family-owned restaurant, Ned looks forward to working at corporate headquarters with his father and (he hopes) his sister Carla. When a woman comes into the Jorby’s he manages one day, Ned falls in love at first sight, but the woman leaves before he can speak to her. Months later, he encounters Mariel at the Lakeside. He believes her to be his mystery woman and the two agree to a date.

In 1934, Florence begins to like life in Bear Jaw. She grows intrigued by the quiet, mysterious Archie Eastman.

In 1981, Ned and Mariel begin date for a summer, and Ned proposes. Ned, meanwhile, struggles to find his path at Jorby’s headquarters, despite his father’s pressure for Ned to make decisive choices about the future of the chain. That Christmas, Ned reveals to his family that Mariel is pregnant; shortly thereafter, Mariel loses the pregnancy. Two months later, Mariel becomes pregnant again. Florence begins monopolizing Mariel and Ned’s wedding plans, which leads the young couple to an impromptu elopement during their own housewarming party.

In 1934, Florence befriends Archie by learning to play cribbage. She learns that Archie and Floyd, who has started dating Betty, are secretly in love. When Betty worries that Floyd is seeing someone else, Florence reveals Archie and Floyd’s relationship to her mother. Floyd proposes and Betty accepts, though he and Archie continue seeing one another secretly. Florence begins working at the Lakeside, a job she enjoys, though she laments that, with her mother’s marriage, she is now set to inherit the Lakeside, which she worries will interfere with her aspirations to become a teacher.

In 1982, Mariel and Ned welcome their son Gus. Both Florence and Ned’s stepmother, Peg, help with infant care. Ned laments that he must return to work so quickly after his son’s birth, wishing he could spend more time at home. His responsibilities at Jorby’s only increase after his father, Edward, has a heart attack.

In 1940, Florence goes on a date with fellow Lakeside server Al Norgaard. This is their first date after a longstanding mutual attraction. The date quickly ends, however, when Florence asserts that she doesn’t want children, nor does she wish to run the Lakeside. Al, by contrast, wants to work at the Lakeside for his whole life and have many children. Florence, distraught over the sudden breakup, walks to Archie’s house, where she finds Archie and Floyd celebrating. They plan to leave for Chicago that night so they can finally be together openly. Florence tells Betty, ruining their plan. The next day, Archie leaves town, but Floyd remains; he tells Florence that once she leaves for college, she can’t ever return to Bear Jaw while he is alive. Florence meets Gustav Stenerud, whom she later marries.

In 1982, Ned juggles parenthood, work, and caring for Edward. Ned and Mariel quarrel over how to celebrate Gus’s birthdays, divided over his future ownership of either Jorby’s or the Lakeside. On his third birthday, Gus dies in an accidental drowning. Mariel blames Florence for the incident; Ned blames himself. When Edward decides to retire shortly thereafter, Ned is shocked to learn that his father plans to leave Jorby’s to Ned’s sister, Carla, and not to Ned. Carla buys Ned out of the business for $2 million; Ned and Mariel take that money to move to Bear Jaw, where Ned builds their new home on the site of Archie’s old house.

In 1956, Florence and Gustav celebrate their 15th anniversary in Bear Jaw. Despite her ambivalence about motherhood, Gustav has convinced Florence to have a baby. Al and Florence admit their lingering feelings for one another. Gustav and Florence conceive Mariel. During Mariel’s childhood, Florence is an anxious, controlling parent who dislikes Betty’s successful efforts to make Mariel love the Lakeside.

In 1996, Mariel befriends Brenda and decides to continue the friendship even after learning that Brenda has been ostracized by much of Bear Jaw after having affairs with several married men in town. An elderly townsperson, Hazel, reveals that Florence has stubbornly spent the whole day waiting for Mariel at the church. Mariel refuses to retrieve her.

In 1975, Florence fears Mariel’s plans to go to college far from home. She removes Mariel’s out-of-state applications from the mail, disposing of them and never admitting what she has done, even when the lack of response makes Mariel question her own value. When Mariel attends the University of Minnesota Duluth, her grandparents are pleased with her proximity to the Lakeside. When Mariel turns 19, they announce their intention to leave the supper club directly to Mariel, not to Florence, who wished to sell it and buy back the house where she was born.

In 1996, Mariel mourns her pregnancy loss as Florence insistently stays in the church, refusing to leave until her daughter retrieves her. Florence remains there for over a month; the town comes to call the church “Fort Florence.” The debacle irritates Kyle, who lives across the street, and Mariel grows frustrated that everyone else in town seems to be on Florence’s side of the passive-aggressive argument. She learns that Florence intends to live in Bear Jaw permanently now that Floyd has died.

Mariel has a second embryo implanted via IVF. She teaches Ned, who has been unemployed since selling Jorby’s, how to bartend, work he finds enjoyable. Mariel eventually gives in and retrieves Florence from the church; the two reconcile. Florence, taking accountability for her role in Gus’s death, asserts that while she would like to know Mariel’s future child, she cannot be left alone with a baby. Mariel has a daughter, whom she names Julia Ellen Prager. Mariel continues to build the Lakeside, keeping her daughter’s future in mind. One day, when Julia is four, Mariel collapses in her driveway, dying but feeling content at knowing her daughter is safe.

Julia’s narrative follows her through childhood and adolescence. Mariel dies when Julia is four, from lung cancer. Julia spends her life with complicated feelings toward the Lakeside, which her mother loved and her father expertly runs until Julia inherits it at age 21. Julia is close to her grandmother, Florence. Julia plans to attend Kenyon College, which she finds wonderful. When she inherits the Lakeside, she sells it to another local restaurant business whose owners speak fondly of Mariel. Ned finds himself surprisingly happy to have a pressure-free job as a bartender at a local bar. Julia uses her financial freedom to buy a house, which allows her to spend more time in nature, her passion. While she wonders where to take her life next, she senses Mariel’s presence in the Minnesota winter.