Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore

The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore

The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

by Edward Kelsey Moore

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Mar 2013, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

Meet Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean. Earl's All-You-Can-Eat is home away from home for this inseparable Plainview, Indiana, trio.  Dubbed "the Supremes" by high school pals in the tumultuous 1960s, they weather life's storms together for the next four decades. Now, during their most challenging year yet, dutiful, proud, and talented Clarice must struggle to keep up appearances as she deals with her husband's humiliating infidelities. Beautiful, fragile Barbara Jean is rocked by the tragic reverberations of a youthful love affair. And fearless Odette engages in the most terrifying battle of her life while contending with the idea that she has inherited more than her broad frame from her notorious pot-smoking mother, Dora.

Through marriage, children, happiness, and the blues, these strong, funny women gather each Sunday at the same table at Earl's diner for delicious food, juicy gossip, occasional tears, and uproarious banter.

With wit and love, style and sublime talent, Edward Kelsey Moore brings together four intertwined love stories, three devoted allies, and two sprightly earthbound spirits in a big-hearted debut novel that embraces the lives of people you will never forget. 

Please be aware that this discussion may contain spoilers!

You can see the full discussion in our legacy forum here. This discussion will contain spoilers!

Some of the recent comments posted about #get_preview_by_id.ezine_preview_title#:

#obc_discussions.name#
#shorten(obc_discussions.body,250)# - #obc_discussions.username#

#obc_discussions.name#
#shorten(obc_discussions.body,250)# - #obc_discussions.username#

#obc_discussions.name#
#shorten(obc_discussions.body,250)# - #obc_discussions.username#

#obc_discussions.name#
#shorten(obc_discussions.body,250)# - #obc_discussions.username#

#obc_discussions.name#
#shorten(obc_discussions.body,250)# - #obc_discussions.username#

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"A novel of strong women, evocative memories and deep friendship." - Kirkus

"What a delight and a privilege it is to be among the earliest readers of this breathtaking debut. The supremely gifted, supremely entertaining, and supremely big-hearted Edward Kelsey Moore has conjured up the story of an entire community and, at its sparkling center, a trio of memorable heroines. How I long to have Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean on speed-dial! At least I'll be able to brag that I knew them before they hit the big time ... as I can promise you they will." - Julia Glass, author of Three Junes and The Widower's Tale

"The author uses warmhearted humor and salty language to bring to life a tight-knit African-American community... With salt-of-the-earth characters like fearless Odette, motherless Barbara Jean, and sharp-tongued Clarice, along with an event-filled plot that readers will laugh and cry over, this is a good bet to become a best seller." - Library Journal

"Edward Kelsey Moore has written a novel jam-packed with warmth, honesty, wit, travail, and just enough madcap humor to keep us giddily off-balance. It teems with memorable characters, chief among them Odette, as unlikely and irresistible protagonist as we are likely to meet. The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat is that rare and happy find: a book that delivers not only good story, but good company." - Leah Hager Cohen, author of The Grief of Others

"Perhaps the most remarkable quality of The Supremes is love--the author's love for his characters, even the most flawed, shines from every page. If Moore's novel is about a rebirth in middle age, it is also about achieving redemption against all odds, even when it seems too late." - Shelf Awareness

This information about The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

YL Michaels

Warm and Full
I put this book down with a smile on my face and the wish to visit this town and meet the characters. Each of the three women were fully formed and shine like stars. I spent time laughing at the everydayness of the personalities that weaved in and out and barely noticed that this story never leaves the town. The beauty of this book is that it never takes an African-american community down the path of the downtrodden. It gives dignity to everyone from Odette to the nutty psychic - from their diction to the way they work around the dark and the light. Eleanor Roosevelt took the cake. I can see a movie coming with this story.

Nae

Fluff and Stuff
Almost all the southerner's I know can tell and enjoy a good story, and when I say tell, I mean t...e...l...l, with all sorts of long-winded side steps and meanderings before getting to the point. It's sort of like we were born with the innate ability of knowing just how many adjectives can be thrown into a single sentence before it is time to move on to the next one. Unfortunately, when the author exceeds that limit of acceptable adjectives per sentence some part of the southerner tends to shuts down with the clangy twang of the door of a coon trap, resulting in loss of the rhythm of the story. That is kind of what happened to me with this book. Even though I enjoyed reading it, and in parts it was amazingly touching and humorous, in other parts there were just too darn many adjectives happening to make it a totally satisfactory read.

That said, the plot line was intriguing, it did keep my interest all the way through, and I am immensely grateful it ended in an upbeat way before I used up an entire box of tissues (another sure-fire way to suck a southerner into the plot line, throw in lots of "drama" and this author surely did that well too).

I compare it to taking that spray can of "Fluffy Whip" and squirting a big dollop into the mouth, but once you swallow the sweet satisfaction just disappears too darn quickly. It was, however, a fairly good way to spend a long afternoon in the porch hammock.

Christie Keele

Entertaining, But That's All
I liked the book The Supremes At Earl's All You Can Eat, but over all, I was disappointed. There were too many characters and character references, and too much backstory to remember. It would have been nice if the author had focused more on the Supremes deep-felt triumphs and heartaches, instead of lightening it with fodder and over-done banter. The book is filled with humor, though, and the author has a great sense of humor. I would have liked to FEEL something from this book as well as enjoy a light-hearted read. I think the author is a good writer, and has a wonderful sense of how women think, considering he's a man, and I found that interesting. This is a good book if you want frivolity and not much depth. I kept looking for MORE in it.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Edward Kelsey Moore

Edward Kelsey Moore lives in Chicago, where he has enjoyed a long career as a cellist. His short fiction has appeared in several literary magazines, including Indiana Review, African American Review, and Inkwell. His short story "Grandma and the Elusive Fifth Crucifix" was selected as an audience favorite on National Public Radio's Stories on Stage series. The Supremes is his first novel. Visit him at edwardkelseymoore.com

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.