Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road

Review by Babs Simpson on show 5th Nov
It is set in Connecticut in the late 1950's and tells the story of a golden couple, April and Frank Wheeler. They have two young children, Frank has a safe if unexciting job in New York and April, who was at drama school when they first met, has aspirations to rekindle her acting career through the medium of a newly formed amateur dramatic group, the Laurel Players. The groups first performance, The Petrified Forest, in which April plays the lead female, is an unmitigated, embarrassing disaster and the story starts from there, with flashbacks to their respective childhoods, their early life together and how they made the move to the suburbs. Other characters include their two friends,Shep and Millie Campbell, who they both secretly despise for their ordinariness, and Mrs Givens, a sad lady who is local estate agent and has a deeply troubled son, currently in a state mental hospital.
The small details of the lives lived in this outwardly tranquil and beautiful part of the USA are beautifully and painfully drawn and despite Aprils barely hidden snobbery and longing to break away to fulfil all their potential, you cannot help but feel her frustration. She decides the best thing to do would be to move to Paris as a family. She will get a job to support them while Frank takes as long as he needs to 'find himself' and develop as something much more exciting than a copy-writer for an engineering company.
Reluctantly swept along by her enthusiasm, Frank agrees and they start making plans for the move. However, things begin to go wrong and spiral ever more downwards as the book progresses. The ending is tragic but inevitable.
It is not an easy read but it is worthwhile. The writing is quite superb and the characters totally real. I took a long time over it - its one of those books where you don't want to miss a word.
I'd never heard of the author before this but apparently he was nominated for the National Book Award in 1962 with this, his first novel.
It is a marvellous piece of writing and I can thoroughly recommend it.
I also look forward to seeing the film with great interest.
Babs