Revolutionary Road

Seeing as how I will be involved in 2 different 4+ hour plane trips in the next week and will have a lot of time for reading (and I guess to give everyone a heads start if they want it) I've decided upon the next book, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.



Now most buzzed due to the recent Sam Mendes adaptation with Leo and Kate, the book is highly acclaimed and, in keeping with our winter theme, I'm assuming ends tragically.

From NPR:

Frank and April Wheeler, the protagonists of Richard Yates' 1961 novel Revolutionary Road, are, in the most basic sense, ordinary people. He works in the city in what he calls "a hopelessly dull job;" she's a stay-at-home mother of two. They live on the street that gives the novel its title, in a cookie-cutter suburb in Connecticut.

In the 300-plus pages of the novel, nothing all that extraordinary happens to them, at least not until the end: Frank and April deal with dissatisfaction and fear, with pregnancy and ambition, and with the dream of escape. Yet in spite of this lack of surface pizazz, Revolutionary Road seems, each time I read it, ever more moving, and ever more an essential testament about mid-20th century America.

Sounds like a treat, but it's something I've wanted to read since Woody Allen mentioned Yates in both Annie Hall and Manhatten. Plus, it was nominated for and then lost the National Book award the same year that Catch-22 did the same. So it has some pretty nice company.

Now, please, continue to consider the Last Night at the Lobster.