I just finished reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates...

[WCGreen]

It's a wonderful book about life in the burgeoning suburbs of New York during the 1950's. It's stunning, a quick read and so real it's a wonder Yates doesn't get mentioned in the same breath as Richard Ford or Thomas Pynchon or Philip Roth or Raymond Carver.

[panader0]

1. Thanks for the review-- I'll check it out on my next trip to Hastings

[mitchum]

2. I had a writing instructor in college who introduced me to his work

Yates is fantastic.
Did you know that Larry David dated his daughter for awhile? David based Elaine's intimidating novelist father on Yates in that Seinfeld episode.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. There's a movie by that same name...

Is it the same story?

Sounds like it...

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. I read it.

I bought it at the airport based on the exceptionally glowing reviews on the back. It was actually written in the early sixties and seems to be "re-discovered" and now there is a movie coming out.

It seemed to me like a New Yorker type of novella. Middle class angst in the suburbs in late fifties. Peggy Lee motif - Is that all there is? etc. F Scott undertones. We're so sensitive and everyone else is so, so crass. Suburbs suck. Let's have an affair.

It's actually pretty good. Revolutionary Road leads right into mainstream American Dream - oops! it's a nightmare.

[WCGreen]

5. 1961 to be exact....

I wonder if the folks at Mad Men read Yates...