John Updike and Philip Roth we know - but the great forgotten novelist of 20th-century America is Richard Yates. His debut, Revolutionary Road, was a critical success in 1961, but over the decades his books were neglected and Yates sank into alcoholism and nervous collapse. Now, with his work being reissued and a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet imminent, is this true visionary finally about to join the giants of American fiction?
Nick Fraser, Sunday February 17, 2008,
The Observer
One of the would-be suicides in Nick Hornby's novel A Long Way Down plans to go out in style with a copy of Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road in his pocket. '[It's] a totally awesome novel,' the character, JJ, tells us. 'I was actually going to jump with a copy - not only because it would have been kinda cool, and would've added a mystique to my death but because it might have been a good way of getting more people to read it.' But JJ's plans misfire when he forgets the book; fortunately for Hornby's distinctly Yatesian novel, he decides not to kill himself. 'I wouldn't recommend finishing it on Christmas Day, in a cold-water bedsit,' JJ says about Yates's masterpiece. 'It probably didn't help my general sense of well-being, if you know what I mean, because the ending is a real downer.'... [περισσότερα
ΕΔΩ] και στο website του Yates:
http://www.tbns.net/elevenkinds/elevenkinds.index.html
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