"Last Night at the Lobster" by Stewart O'Nan

The novella is an under-appreciated literary form. This one follows the old onion analogy better than any story I've read in a long time. The book starts out simple enough, with a restaurant manager and his crew on one day (the restaurant's last day), during the holidays and a wicked snow storm. Then the layers start peeling back, and you are deeper and deeper into these characters' lives. It's just one chain restaurant, and the employees will all move on to other jobs, but the story that chronicles this fictitious day means something. I don't know what it says about me, but I love microcosm stories.