Revolutionary Road
Author | Richard Yates |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | Greenwood Press |
Publication date | 31 December 1961 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 337 pp (first edition, hardback) |
ISBN | ISBN 0-8371-6221-1 (first edition, hardback) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
OCLC | 171266 |
813/.5/4 | |
LC Class | PZ4.Y335 Re6 PS3575.A83 |
Revolutionary Road, the first novel of author Richard Yates, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1962 along with Catch-22 and The Moviegoer. When it was published by Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1961, it received critical acclaim, and the New York Times reviewed it as "beautifully crafted... a remarkable and deeply troubling book."[1]
In 2005 the novel was chosen by Time as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.[2]
When DeWitt Henry and Geoffrey Clark interviewed Yates for the Winter, 1972 issue of Ploughshares, Yates detailed the title's subtext:
I think I meant it more as an indictment of American life in the 1950s. Because during the Fifties there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only in the suburbs — a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price. [3]
What Yates does not mention is that the book's title borrows its name from an actual "Revolutionary Road," whose start was located but a few yards from a childhood home in Scarborough, New York.[citation needed]
Plot summary
Set in 1955, the novel focuses on the hopes and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, self-assured Connecticut suburbanites who see themselves as very different from their neighbors in the Revolutionary Hill Estates. In the opening scene, April stars in an embarrassingly bad amateur dramatic production of The Petrified Forest:
She was working alone, and visibly weakening with every line. Before the end of the first act the audience could tell as well as the Players that she’d lost her grip, and soon they were all embarrassed for her. She had begun to alternate between false theatrical gestures and a white-knuckled immobility; she was carrying her shoulders high and square, and despite her heavy make-up you could see the warmth of humiliation rising in her face and neck.
After the performance Frank and April have a massive fight on the side of the highway.
Seeking to break out of their suburban rut, April convinces Frank they should move to Paris, where she will work and support him while he realizes his vague ambition to be something other than an office worker. The promise of France puts a band aid on their marital problems for the time being. Frank (from whose point of view most of the novel is told) though never outwardly voicing it to April, does not seem to be as fond of the France idea as she, doing the minimum to get by at work without developing any alternative self. April, in contrast, takes concrete steps to accomplish the move. When she conceives their third child, their plan to leave America crumbles, not least because Frank is flattered by praise from his supervisors at work and beginning to identify with his mundane job.
April, overwhelmed by the outcome of the situation and unable to deal with living on Revolutionary Road for an indefinite period, attempts to self-abort her child, and in doing so is rushed to hospital and dies from blood loss. Frank, scarred by the ordeal and feeling deep guilt over the outcome, is left a hollow shell of a man.
Theme
In the October 1999 issue of the Boston Review, Yates was quoted on his central theme: "If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy." The Wheelers' frustrations and yearnings for something better represent the tattered remnants of the American Dream.
Literary significance
Stewart O'Nan probed the neglect of Yates in "The Lost World of Richard Yates: How the great writer of the Age of Anxiety disappeared from print"
William Styron, who once gave a reading of the novel's opening chapter at Boston University, called Revolutionary Road "a deft, ironic, beautiful novel that deserves to be a classic."
Kurt Vonnegut called it "The Great Gatsby of my time... one of the best books by a member of my generation."
Tennessee Williams also praised the book: "Here is more than fine writing; here is what, added to fine writing, makes a book come immediately, intensely and brilliantly alive. If more is needed to make a masterpiece in modern American fiction, I am sure I don't know what it is."
Film adaptation
Screenwriter Justin Haythe adapted the novel for filming by Evamere Entertainment (formerly HartSharp Entertainment) with BBC Films. Revolutionary Road was directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and reunites Oscar-nominated Titanic stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, alongside Oscar winner and Titanic co-star Kathy Bates. It opened December 26, 2008 to favorable reviews by David Ansen, David Denby, Todd McCarthy, Mick LaSalle, Greg White, Peter Travers, Roger Ebert and other leading film critics.
References
- ^ Ford, Richard (2000-04-09). "American beauty (Circa 1955)". New York Times Book Review. New York Times. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
- ^ Time: "All-Time 100 Novels"
- ^ Henry, DeWitt and Clark, Geoffrey. "An Interview with Richard Yates," Ploughshares, Winter, 1972.