a book
Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates · 1971 · 337 pages
From the moment of its publication in 1961, Revolutionary Road was hailed as a masterpiece of realistic fiction and as the most evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs. It's the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.
recommended by 6 people
sourced from public statements
Philip Seymour Hoffman
“Frank and April Wheeler are a young married couple who’ve moved from Greenwich Village to the suburbs. They consider themselves intellectuals, and they’ve left the city with regret. The way they justify it in their hearts is to assume that they are better than their neighbors. But one night, while with another couple, Frank tells a story, and in the middle he realizes he’s told it before. It’s an awful scene—a moment when Frank and April come to terms with what their life really is and how fully they’ve compromised their dreams. They try to reclaim one: to live in Paris. But that fantasy is only a reprieve, and when the moment passes, the reality sinks back down.”↗
Kate Winslet
“Frank and April Wheeler meet in New York. He has bohemian ideas; she is a woman who believed that she was going to be something special among a group of special people. After they move to the suburbs, you see quite clearly the isolation they feel once severed from the city. In the moments when the two are happy, you see how happiness can be reignited in a relationship that’s starting to go sour, but they insist on seeing themselves as a kind of golden couple, destined for a more glamorous life. It’s really a story about disappointment—and how that can destroy one’s soul.”↗
Lionel Shriver
“Although I’ve never met a Richard Yates book I didn’t like, Revolutionary Road is my favorite, and it’s certainly his most celebrated. In 1955 Frank and April Wheeler have moved from bohemian Greenwich Village to suburban Connecticut. But the couple feel superior to their dumpy, culturally arid neighbors in Revolutionary Hill Estates and they plan to move to sophisticated Paris. Yates’s skewering of middle-class pretension and typically American anti-Americanism starts out gentle, but the story takes a sharp turn towards the grim. Matters don’t end well for the couple.”↗
Bradley Cooper
“I’ve never seen suburbia portrayed in such a way that was so riveting. He really captured it.”↗
