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A review by jessicaesquire
The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
4.0
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?