"Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates

[megustaleer]

I had never heard of this author, Richard Yates, supposedly

One of the United States' finest post-war novelists and short story writers

until I was given this as a 'book group' choice. in the edition I read there is an introduction added by Richard Ford (haven't heard of him either), added in 2000, presumably to encourage and revive interest in Yates' writing (he died in 1992).

The book is set in suburban America in 1955, amongst that strange post-war generation of young middle class couples who are disappointed and dissatisfied with the life they are leading.
He is working in a dull and pointless job, made more so by his determination to represent himself as someone who has the ability to do so much more, but what's the point?
She gave up her ambition to be an actress to become wife and mother, but is acting that role and not satisfied with it. As the book opens she discovers that she can't live up to her own expectations even on the amateur stage, and that is when the false image they have of themselves as intellectually superior to their friends and neighbours starts to crumble.
It all ends badly, of course.

(The mental image I have of the setting for this book is the little town with the pastel houses, commuting husbands and stay-at-home wives that we see in the opening shots of 'Edward Scissorhands')