Summary
A suburban family-Frank, April, and the two kids-breaks down when April decides they should change their lives by moving to Paris and Frank gets involved in a messy affair at the office. Richard Yates's brilliant 1961 novel, in which there are no winners, is a satirical dissection of suburbia in the 1950s and a probing examination of the sadness, emptiness, and self-deception at the heart of some American lives and relationships. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD was a finalist for the National Book Award. This edition contains an introduction by Richard Ford.
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Media Reviews
"Originally published in 1961, this gratifyingly beautiful novel has been reissued again-and for good reason....[A]n overlooked masterpiece of American tragedy." -- Oscar C. Villalon
-- San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"This is the material of comedy, and there are scenes in the novel that border on slapstick, but rather than innocent misunderstandings that prove harmless, the characters' misadventures are unremittingly bleak and confirm the emptiness of their lives....Richard Yates's satire is not confined to the tensions of middle-class American life, but lays bare the adjustment to its shifting boundaries and in the improbable balance of restlessness and complacency he can find neither cause to celebrate nor reason to forgive." -- Stan Trachtenburg
-- Times Literary Supplement
"The book is structured around a series of similar episodes, each profoundly disappointing, each following the same pattern. Hope and happiness are there to provide proleptic irony: to be mocked by the damp underwear of the miserable present....The novel often has a polemic bitterness-but polemic usually has a target, and Yates's disapproval is universal. As a panorama of pain and unhappiness, his novel rivals MISS LONELYHEARTS,with the important difference that it never erupts into gleeful grotesquerie. Reading the novel is a mirthless experience: it is satire shorn of humour and excess." -- Theo Tait
-- London Review of Books
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: Random House Inc
Published date: 1989
Edition: 1th edition
Size: 5.25 x 8 inches
Weight: 0.65 pounds
Pages: 337
Publisher's Notes
Yates' first novel that became an instant classic upon its release in 1961. It remains the definitive portrayal of the lost promises and break-up of the American dream.
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