3 Great Novels by Richard Yates

Richard Yates. An author known for his treatment of the destruction of the American Dream has written many great novels including one that was adapted into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road. But that is not the only great book he wrote whilst he was in his prime. In fact, it was only one of many. I have read many novels by Richard Yates and I don't think I can say that any of the ones I have read are actually bad. Of course some are better than others, but there are none that I can say I wholeheartedly did not enjoy.

Biography

Born in 1926 in New York - Richard Yates was raised in a household of arguments and eventually, his parents divorce. He lived in many different towns as a result and it must have been one of the reasons that many of his characters suffer. When he began working, he was a ghost writer - sometimes for political speeches - sometimes even for Robert F. Kennedy.

He would not start his writing career until the start of the 1960s. And to think, his very first full published novel was "Revolutionary Road" which would be the one he was most known for. Of all of his novels, there are three that have always stood out to me as being the most incredibly written with some of the greatest relationships known to novels in all of realist literature.

He would die of a lung disease at the age of 66 years' old in Birmingham, Alabama in 1992.

The Books

The three novels I have chosen are especially important because they have not only served as great novels but they have also served as some of the most realistic novels about searching and then falling from, the American Dream. Unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald, in which lifestyles seem rich and almost unattainable but tragic nonetheless, Richard Yates writes of people who are people that, from the time, you would call regular.

These novels are in no particular order

3 Great Novels by Richard Yates

Disturbing the Peace (1975)

One of the greatest novels I have read about the destruction of the self due to the requirement for the American Dream - this is about John Wilder. John Wilder is married, but he's having an affair. He seems to have it together, but he's an alcoholic. He has it all, including insomnia. He seems to be the icon of the American man - and then he's committed to Bellevue Hospital. It seems like one of those books in which circumstance takes place so frequently that the character, no longer in control, has trouble telling what is supposed to be their reality from what is actually their reality. It is a beautiful novel about going up, coming down and trying to keep your head above the deep, dark waters.

A Good School (1978)

This book is about a boy called William Groves who goes to Dorset Academy. It is filled with the problems of teenaged boys and even though that is the case, it is also filled with the strange things that go on with the teachers. Teaching us, as a result, the grave humanity of these teachers who are supposed to care for these boarding school students - we see affairs, jealousies, torment and even attempted suicide. It is one of Richard Yates' most humanising and dehumanising novels and yet, it is based partly off his own experiences at school.

Young Hearts Crying (1984)

One of my personal favourite Richard Yates' novels because of the fact the characters are so detached from reality, they do not realise that they are self destructing. It covers a man called Michael who marries a wealthy heiress, even though he himself is an average man. After a while of learning about what she has, though he has no attraction to her money, he becomes bored of her and she finds out he is sneaking around behind her back. When their daughter is born there are various things that make the relationship more and more difficult and then we get the story of what happens to them when the climax approaches - it is the straw that metaphorically broke the camel's back. It is written brilliantly and I love the way in which it seems so real to you whilst you're involved with all of them. You want to shout out to them but you know in your heart that they won't hear you.