Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates  (7)
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Review
This collection by Richard Yates includes short stories previously published in Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love as well as a further nine uncollected stories, some of which are published here for the first time. The 27 stories in the collection, although in many ways very different, have several common autobiographical threads running through them. Yates saw active service during the last few months of World War II, but shortly after discharge was diagnosed with TB and spent 18 months in a sanatorium. It was after leaving the hospital that he went to France with his first wife and began writing his short stories. The years that followed saw the breakdown of his marriage, a constant battle with manic depression and alcohol, and work on many screenplays as well as speechwriting for Attorney General Robert Kennedy. All of these themes are dealt with in one or more of the stories, and yet it is not until one reads the pages about the author at the end of the collection that one realizes the extent of the autobiographical content, such is the measured, almost detached, quality of the prose, written entirely without sentimentality. This can be a problem. Whereas often in a short story, one expects a twist, a sting in the tail, these pieces invariably end on a note of anti-climax - the return to a status quo which the characters had threatened to escape. The collection has an introduction by the novelist Richard Russo who makes much of that familiar theme, the failure of the American Dream, and it is true that most of the stories deal with ambitions unrealized and expectations unfulfilled. However, there are no spectacular falls from grace, just a pervading sense of mediocrity. Many of the characters have done military service in the war, but hardly any have seen action; several of the characters lose their jobs, but only as a result of incompetence, not of misdemeanour; the many writers in the stories aspire to be a Hemingway or a Fitzgerald, but most simply write copy for local papers. The other overriding theme of the collection is loneliness. Several of the stories have their subject lost in a large city, usually New York, but also Paris and London; equally touching are the portraits of the family men isolated in tuberculosis wards, visited once a week by their dutiful wives. These stories, some short thumbnail sketches, others more detailed expositions, offer vivid insight into the lives of ordinary people in ordinary situations and paint a grey rather than black picture of American post-war society. Such a grey world can become monotonous, however, and one cannot help wondering if they would have been better reprinted in their original form and those previously unpublished brought together in a new collection, rather than being reproduced in this somewhat unwieldy volume. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
Richard Yates is considered by some to be one of the most powerful, compassionate and technically accomplished writer's of postwar America. His work inspired many others, including Andre Dubus and Kurt Vonnegut. His 1961 novel, "Revolutionary Road", is acknowledged as an American classic. This volume contains a collection of his short stories. It contains "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" and "L
This collection by Richard Yates includes short stories previously published in Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love as well as a further nine uncollected stories, some of which are published here for the first time. The 27 stories in the collection, although in many ways very different, have several common autobiographical threads running through them. Yates saw active service during the last few months of World War II, but shortly after discharge was diagnosed with TB and spent 18 months in a sanatorium. It was after leaving the hospital that he went to France with his first wife and began writing his short stories. The years that followed saw the breakdown of his marriage, a constant battle with manic depression and alcohol, and work on many screenplays as well as speechwriting for Attorney General Robert Kennedy. All of these themes are dealt with in one or more of the stories, and yet it is not until one reads the pages about the author at the end of the collection that one realizes the extent of the autobiographical content, such is the measured, almost detached, quality of the prose, written entirely without sentimentality. This can be a problem. Whereas often in a short story, one expects a twist, a sting in the tail, these pieces invariably end on a note of anti-climax - the return to a status quo which the characters had threatened to escape. The collection has an introduction by the novelist Richard Russo who makes much of that familiar theme, the failure of the American Dream, and it is true that most of the stories deal with ambitions unrealized and expectations unfulfilled. However, there are no spectacular falls from grace, just a pervading sense of mediocrity. Many of the characters have done military service in the war, but hardly any have seen action; several of the characters lose their jobs, but only as a result of incompetence, not of misdemeanour; the many writers in the stories aspire to be a Hemingway or a Fitzgerald, but most simply write copy for local papers. The other overriding theme of the collection is loneliness. Several of the stories have their subject lost in a large city, usually New York, but also Paris and London; equally touching are the portraits of the family men isolated in tuberculosis wards, visited once a week by their dutiful wives. These stories, some short thumbnail sketches, others more detailed expositions, offer vivid insight into the lives of ordinary people in ordinary situations and paint a grey rather than black picture of American post-war society. Such a grey world can become monotonous, however, and one cannot help wondering if they would have been better reprinted in their original form and those previously unpublished brought together in a new collection, rather than being reproduced in this somewhat unwieldy volume. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
Richard Yates is considered by some to be one of the most powerful, compassionate and technically accomplished writer's of postwar America. His work inspired many others, including Andre Dubus and Kurt Vonnegut. His 1961 novel, "Revolutionary Road", is acknowledged as an American classic. This volume contains a collection of his short stories. It contains "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" and "L