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Dec
10
Book Review: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
2008 at 6pm Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Set in 1955 in the Connecticut suburbs of New York City, Revolutionary Road, published in 1961, is the original novel about the suburban wasteland and the often disastrous effects of moving out, settling down, and giving up.
Frank and April Wheeler were full of promise. He had intelligence, wit, and a decent job in the city, and she graduated from theater school and showed noticeable, if not remarkable talent. They got married, moved to the suburbs, had children, and now they are miserable.
An educated, intelligent, somewhat cosmopolitan couple, Frank and April recognized the absurdity of “deadly dull jobs in the city and deadly dull homes in the suburbs” and think they are doing pretty well at resisting them. They are clearly in denial, since Frank works in a mindless job (at the same company his father worked for), and April has become the typical lonely housewife, for whom life is one act after another…but they haven’t come to terms with that fact.
Frank and April get together with their friends the Campbells and fall into routine discussions about the “desolate emptiness” of the suburbs and “the whole idea of suburbia being to keep reality at bay.”
It’s as if everybody’d made this tacit agreement to live in a state of total self-deception.
They want to continue to be a part of the “real” world, to think about important things and make important decisions. Most of all, they want to resist what April calls the “enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and “settle down” when they have families. It’s the great sentimental lie of the suburbs.”
During one evening with the Campbells, the conversation falls silent.
They shifted in their seats, they filled awkward pauses with elaborate courtesies about the refreshing of drinks, they avoided one another’s eyes and did their best to avoid the alarming, indisputable knowledge that they had nothing to talk about.
Disillusioned with their friends, their life in the suburbs, and Frank’s impending climb up the corporate ladder, the Wheelers cook up a plan to move to France, where they can be truly forward-thinking. It’s an idea their friends consider “immature,” actions that would only be taken by people who are “running away from something,” but an escape plan is exactly what they need, and their other attempts (primarily through extramarital affairs) have failed to satisfy them. Everyone they tell thinks it’s a crazy idea, but Frank and April, in their self-deluded glory, think they have it all figured out and that everyone else is just incapable of comprehending what they’re really doing. They have moments of clarity, when they realize on some level that things aren’t right and that they aren’t entirely healthy, but the moments don’t last, and they are never quite able to admit the truth to themselves.
Their plans are disrupted by April’s discovery that she is pregnant, and she and Frank become locked in a battle over whether to attempt abortion or to cancel the move and be stuck in their depressed, depressing suburban life. Yates captures their intimate knowledge and artful manipulation of each other with great mastery, and he makes their arguments beyond believable.
In fact, Revolutionary Road as a whole is a triumph of realistic writing. Yates’s dialogue rings true and becomes increasingly sharp as Frank and April become more and more deluded. When they argue, you feel the sting of every overt insult and subtle jab, and when it all starts to come down around them, you know that this is how it must really be when a marriage implodes. This is not a quiet collapse.
I loved Yates’s style from the opening chapter and was consistently impressed by his realism and his ability to portray his characters’ inner lives and their well-acted relationships equally well. This is clearly the work that sparked the idea that eventually inspired movies like American Beauty, and I’m sure Yates has been inspiration for many contemporary writers. Tom Perrotta’s writing seems to bear some marks of this influence, particularly in Little Children, but that’s just my guess.
Revolutionary Road is a stunning American classic. 5 out 5.
I’d be remiss not to mention that this book has been adapted for a film that will be released in the U.S. on December 26th. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio play April and Frank Wheeler, and though I usually detest books based on movies, I’m looking forward to this one because I could heard DiCaprio’s voice delivering Frank’s lines as I read, and (at least in my head) it seemed to work pretty well.
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I just *knew* you’d love this one. It’s truly a masterpiece. I hope everyone reads it before the movie opens, because I can’t imagine a movie doing this novel justice, no matter how well-done.
I’ve had my eye on this one for a while and this is the first blog review I’ve seen. Nice job!
Ann, you were right on! I LOVED it. And I agree that everyone should read the book first. Always read the book first.
I’m dying to read this – saw it for the first time in the bookstore over the weekend.
It’s always book before movie for me too
[...] bookmarks tagged elaborate Book Review: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates saved by 10 others Melhin bookmarked on 12/11/08 | [...]
I read this one a few years ago in a “modern American history” class and loved it — and what is so compelling about this book, to me, is learning what time it was written and released. It came out in 1961! This wasn’t a reflection back on an idyllic time, or a way to look at things as the edges have softened and our perceptions have changed. It was a scathing look at a society and life . . . as it was happening. Amazing!
Great review, Rebecca! Glad you enjoyed the book, too. I’ll definitely be seeing the movie — this was one of those “school” books I fell in love with. I’ll always remember it!
This has been on my mental list for a while, since they filmed the movie in and around my hometown while I was actually there spending some extended time with my family. But the mental list is so long. Glad to hear you liked it, it does sound great.
But by 1961, that sort of existence that Yates was skewering had already become a cliche. I think it’s popular today because we like to think that everyone has always been as miserable as we are–that jobs have always been soul sucking, that suburbs have always been dull, and that family life destroys talent and creativity. What if, in fact, we’re just as talentless and deluded as our parents have been made out to be?
[...] BOOK LADY’S BLOG REVIEW (read it here) [...]
[...] what they want without having to be told.Revolutionary Road, on the other hand, like the compelling book on which it is based, tries to deal in truths, however unwelcome, rather than agreeable myths. Its [...]
brilliant novel, but totally humorless in the portrayal of the main character April Wheeler a narcicisstic woman who would drag her young children over to France so she could feel fulfilled.
[...] http://thebookladysblog.com/2008/12/10/book-review-revolutionary-road-by-richard-yates/ [...]
[...] the Book Lady’s Blog [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Reader Writer, George Ayres. George Ayres said: Book Lady's excellent 2008 (@bookladysblog) review of "Revolutionary Road": http://tinyurl.com/258rfxv [...]
Hmmm… I watched the film before I read the book.. I loved the film so much that I decided I would read it.. Then in my A Level English Lit class we had to do an essay comparing 2 books of our choice.. so I chose this one and The Great Gatsby.. and to be honest, I thought that Revolutionary Road was kinda boring.. it was too slow and the pase should have been quicker, I guess that this is just a reflection of their lives: Boring, but the only reason I caried on reading it was so i could do my essay.. i mean I already knew the story and didn’t need to continue reading it.. I thought it was to biased on Franks side and April should have featured in it more.. the book gets 2/5 starrs for me whereas the film get 5/5 (: