Disturbing the Peace (novel)
 Cover to the first edition | |
| Author | Richard Yates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Delacorte Press/S. Lawrence |
Publication date | 1975 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 1499096925 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Disturbing the Peace is a novel by American writer Richard Yates. First published in 1975, Yates' fourth book concerns the crack-up and institutionalization of an alcoholic salesman. Semi-autobiographical, the novel was dismissed by critics as his weakest book.
Plot summary
A prototypical Yatesian dreamer, John C. Wilder is a mediocre salesman in New York who seeks refuge from the disappointment of his life in alcohol and adultery. After he is committed to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York, he seeks help from his family, psychiatrists, and AA meetings. With the encouragement of a mistress, Wilder renews himself through the prospect of making a film about his institutionalization. After a group of enthusiastic college students embrace his story and partially film his screenplay, Wilder leaves his family and job to move to Hollywood in the hopes of securing a deal that will complete and distribute the film. The loss of his mistress and the rejection he suffers from producers leads him even deeper into an abyss of paranoid alcoholic delusion. The novel ends with Wilder wandering the streets of Los Angeles, declaring himself to be Jesus Christ (mirroring a delusional incident in Yates' own life), and being recommitted to an institution.
Critical reception
Critics largely dismissed the book as Yates' weakest and wrote that it confirmed him as a one-book-writer.[1] Fourteen years after the success of Revolutionary Road, critics were expecting a novel at least as astonishing as his debut to confirm his status as a great writer. While Yates' short-story collection Eleven Kinds of Loneliness was celebrated, his second novel A Special Providence was panned. The lackluster sales and critical reception for Disturbing the Peace convinced many that "like Fitzgerald and so many others, he’d squandered his talent, drank it away."[1] This reputation persisted until the following year when Yates published his acclaimed novel The Easter Parade.
Notes
- ^ a b O’Nan, Stewart (October/November), "The Lost World of Richard Yates: How the great writer of the Age of Anxiety disappeared from print", Boston Review
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External links
Review from Ploughshares by DeWitt Henry