Richard Yates’s 1961 novel Revolutionary Road fell out of fashion — and out of print — until two or three years ago. Since it reappeared, readers who have happed upon it have become zealots in the Yates cause, making favourable comparisons with John Updike, pushing copies of the book into even the most reluctant hands, mentioning it at every opportunity. Many converts have been made. Such fervour is entirely justified: Revolutionary Road really is one of the great novels of the 20th century, a dazzling, scalpel-sharp portrait of both a failing marriage and of an era. In the wake of its rediscovery, several of Yates’s other books have been reprinted. Of these, the novel Easter Parade is perhaps the most brilliant, although it rather peters out in the final 40 pages or so. Eleven Kinds of Loneliness is a collection of short stories which first appeared a year after Revolutionary Road.
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