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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
This book follows sisters Sarah and Emily from childhood (c. 1930) through middle age (c. 1974). Sarah marries and moves to Long Island, while Emily pursues a career in copy writing and advertising in New York. The writing is strong throughout, though as one reviewer below notes, the author spends quite a bit of the middle of the book summarizing events rather than writing scenes that bring you into the action.
If there is a theme to this book, it's the emptiness of post-war American middle-class life. All of the characters in the book are damaged in some way, and I couldn't help thinking that if some of them weren't, they could have found a little more richness and fulfillment in their lives. The book provides an unflinching, unsentimental portrait of lives gone astray, with realistic and devastating portrayals of several characters' long slide into alcoholism.
Thoreau said "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation," and Richard Yates said, "Yeah, and I'm going to write a book and show you what that looks like."
The characters are rich and well drawn, and the book is well worth reading, but Yates' stories are so bleak (this and Revolutionary Road) I don't think I could read two of his books in the same month.
If there is a theme to this book, it's the emptiness of post-war American middle-class life. All of the characters in the book are damaged in some way, and I couldn't help thinking that if some of them weren't, they could have found a little more richness and fulfillment in their lives. The book provides an unflinching, unsentimental portrait of lives gone astray, with realistic and devastating portrayals of several characters' long slide into alcoholism.
Thoreau said "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation," and Richard Yates said, "Yeah, and I'm going to write a book and show you what that looks like."
The characters are rich and well drawn, and the book is well worth reading, but Yates' stories are so bleak (this and Revolutionary Road) I don't think I could read two of his books in the same month.
I'd never read anything by Yates until I read Revolutionary Road recently. I loved that book, and this one is equally as good.
The story of two sisters and their mother, wasted lives blighted by loneliness, broken dreams, alcoholism and failure.
Yates is a truly fantastic writer, I struggle to think of another author who portrays post war middle class angst quite as brilliantly
The story of two sisters and their mother, wasted lives blighted by loneliness, broken dreams, alcoholism and failure.
Yates is a truly fantastic writer, I struggle to think of another author who portrays post war middle class angst quite as brilliantly
Devastating and beautiful at the same time, Yates writes the story of the relationships between two sisters which spans decades, and ends in tragedy. The way the author wrote the relationship between the two sisters, Emily and Sarah, was beautifully done, and what amazed me the most was how Richard Yates managed to write such a depressing story in such an enjoyable and readable way. Would highly recommend if you like story's about sibling and family relationships!
Finished “The Easter Parade” and it was engaging and utterly depressing. Yates is a beautiful writer. His melancholic and slightly cynical prose makes you feel like an invisible observer in the rooms his characters occupy. The story concerns two sisters, children of divorce, following them and their lives and loves for four decades. They’re not very likable and their life choices are questionable, to say the least. Yet, I still had hope for them. I, perhaps somewhat optimistically, figured that there must be a reason for their misery. Yates must be trying to convey a message. I believe it to be about loving your family for their faults instead of chastising them. This may be a bit maudlin, but I need to take something positive away from this very depressing book!
Oh, such anguish! I love Yates but need to follow my friend Erin's smart advice: only one Richard Yates book is allowed per year. From page one, the narrator warns that the lives you are about to learn about are not happy ones, but I still feel devastated. Can't wait to hear what my book club friends think of this.
Like a lot of people, I wasn't acquainted with Yates until the mid-00's. I read and immediately loved REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and I always meant to get into his other novels but didn't get to it. Yates has the plain talking but emotionally resonant mid-century style that appeals to me a lot and there was a depth to his characters that stood out to me more than many of his peers. I picked this up after seeing an article that referred to it as feminist so I thought it was a good time to pick it up.
To be honest, I'm glad I waited. If I'd read this over a decade ago, in my late 20's, I probably would have liked it fine but I also would have wondered what the point is. Now as I'm looking middle-age dead in the eye, I see the point all too well.
This book follows two sisters, Sarah and Emily, from childhood into late middle-age. Once they are adults we focus on Emily, the smart one (Sarah was the pretty one). The girls have a challenging childhood, their parents are divorced but they're also terribly unreliable. Their mother in particular (who makes the girls call her "Pookie") is a fantasist who doesn't provide much in the way of stability. Their father hovers only around the edges of their lives.
When Emily shrugs off the life that is expected of her and instead has a career and a series of love affairs, it seems like we may be getting the story of a liberated woman. But it is not quite that simple. This is, in a lot of ways, a companion book to the many stories of unfulfilled men from Yates' peers. Emily, however, doesn't quite get the chance to ever really be fully herself. As much as she can sometimes shrug off what she is supposed to do, she has no other place to go, she has no other person to be, and she often retreats into the supportive-second-fiddle role of romantic partner to a man, even if it isn't marriage. It is so overwhelming and frustrating to see Emily try but fail. (None of this is a spoiler, as Yates tells us in the first sentence that the sisters don't live happy lives.)
The relationship between the sisters is particularly complex. At times Emily envies Sarah, but then the pendulum will swing. Emily will need Sarah for help, and then Sarah will need Emily, then they'll both need to help their mother. The most heartbreaking sections are when Emily holds herself back from really helping Sarah based, it seems, on her own frustration and resentment.
Oof, this was a read. It wasn't a happy book, but Emily became very real to me. And while I understand that Yates is certainly not what you'd call a feminist, he has created a fully realized woman here better than most novelists can. He was never flashy about it, either. The exact kind of writing I like, where it is almost like a magic trick. How, with such simple prose, did he pull off such a wonder?
To be honest, I'm glad I waited. If I'd read this over a decade ago, in my late 20's, I probably would have liked it fine but I also would have wondered what the point is. Now as I'm looking middle-age dead in the eye, I see the point all too well.
This book follows two sisters, Sarah and Emily, from childhood into late middle-age. Once they are adults we focus on Emily, the smart one (Sarah was the pretty one). The girls have a challenging childhood, their parents are divorced but they're also terribly unreliable. Their mother in particular (who makes the girls call her "Pookie") is a fantasist who doesn't provide much in the way of stability. Their father hovers only around the edges of their lives.
When Emily shrugs off the life that is expected of her and instead has a career and a series of love affairs, it seems like we may be getting the story of a liberated woman. But it is not quite that simple. This is, in a lot of ways, a companion book to the many stories of unfulfilled men from Yates' peers. Emily, however, doesn't quite get the chance to ever really be fully herself. As much as she can sometimes shrug off what she is supposed to do, she has no other place to go, she has no other person to be, and she often retreats into the supportive-second-fiddle role of romantic partner to a man, even if it isn't marriage. It is so overwhelming and frustrating to see Emily try but fail. (None of this is a spoiler, as Yates tells us in the first sentence that the sisters don't live happy lives.)
The relationship between the sisters is particularly complex. At times Emily envies Sarah, but then the pendulum will swing. Emily will need Sarah for help, and then Sarah will need Emily, then they'll both need to help their mother. The most heartbreaking sections are when Emily holds herself back from really helping Sarah based, it seems, on her own frustration and resentment.
Oof, this was a read. It wasn't a happy book, but Emily became very real to me. And while I understand that Yates is certainly not what you'd call a feminist, he has created a fully realized woman here better than most novelists can. He was never flashy about it, either. The exact kind of writing I like, where it is almost like a magic trick. How, with such simple prose, did he pull off such a wonder?