Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates Publisher: Shanghai Translation Publishing House

Introduction · · · · · ·
She and he entered into marriage, like hiding under an umbrella on a rainy day

But the rain didn't stop, and it got heavier.

She was trapped, and finally ran out and disappeared in the rain

∽ ∽ ∽

Richard Yates' classic novel on marriage difficulties

Golden Globe Award-winning film novel

One of the 100 classic English novels selected by Time magazine

-

In the 1950s, there was a universal desire for conformity—a blind, no-cost attachment to safety and security—and it wasn’t just in the suburbs. The Eisenhower administration and McCarthyism were the political manifestations of that desire. Yet many Americans were uneasy about all this, seeing it as a blatant betrayal of the revolutionary spirit of beauty and courage—the spirit I tried to infuse with the character of April. The title was trying to say that the revolutionary road of 1776 seemed to have come to an end in the 1950s.

—Richard Yates

-

Contents:

The novel tells the story of a young couple, Frank and April Wheeler, in the 1950s. They lived on a road called "Revolutionary Road" in the suburbs of Connecticut. There were many middle-class families like them living in the nearby community. Frank (also meaning "frank") is a down-to-earth corporate white-collar worker, while the housewife April (also meaning "April") is lively, romantic and imaginative. The gap between ideals and reality has put their relationship in trouble. The increasingly frequent quarrels almost suffocated the two. April's plan to move to Europe to find herself once saved the crisis and brought the two a brief vision of changing their lives. However, the plan was eventually shattered, and fate slid irreversibly into tragedy... As Yates himself said: "The characters in my works are all within the limitations of their own known and unknown. They want to do their best and do things that they can't help but do, but they inevitably fail in the end because they can't help but be themselves again."

-

The most insightful writer of the twentieth century.

—The Times

One of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century.

——The Sunday Telegraph

Revolutionary Road examines not only broken marriages, but also the anxious despair between husband and wife, which is difficult to let go and heartbreaking.

——USA Today

Those who criticize traditional realism always say that it is the most self-righteous narrative style because it never questions its own fictionality. Revolutionary Road is essentially a novel about fictionality, and naturally explores its own fictionality.

—The New Yorker

His passionate 1950s writing, Revolutionary Road, depicted the end of middle-class social relations, making everything that followed seem pale and powerless.

——Times Magazine