Helpful Score: 10
This is a deeply disturbing, unsentimental, unsparing portrait of a married couple. No cliches, just brutal honesty--so brutal that it's hard to read. Great writing, but not showy, and amazing pyschological insights into the characters. You're often both repelled by and empathize with the husband and wife at the center of the story.
The story itself is rather simple: a domestic drama about April and Frank Wheeler and their kids, set in the 1950s, dealing with jobs, friends, children, and their dreams for the future. The book paints a bleak picture about the choices they make and their fading idealism. Although it was written in '61 and describes the '50s, it still feels fresh.
File this one under "Domestic Holocaust".
The story itself is rather simple: a domestic drama about April and Frank Wheeler and their kids, set in the 1950s, dealing with jobs, friends, children, and their dreams for the future. The book paints a bleak picture about the choices they make and their fading idealism. Although it was written in '61 and describes the '50s, it still feels fresh.
File this one under "Domestic Holocaust".
Helpful Score: 7
I don't use the word masterpiece lightly...This book really blew me away. The movie follows the plot closely but fails to truly capture the emotional point of the story. The power is in the character's internal lives...so if you've seen the movie and not read the book, please give the book a try.
Destiny C. (destinyj) -
Helpful Score: 4
This book paints a dreary picture of life in the suburbs and a life unfullfilled. At the same time you want to grab the characters and shake them.. make them wake up and either do something about their lives or find satisfaction in what their reality is.
LecClier K. (SierraK) -
Helpful Score: 2
This book started out slowly, but by page 70 I was hooked! Even though it was written in 1961 and has the theme of the futility of suburban life in the 1950s, it still rang true for life today. Fabulous character development. Really enjoyed it a lot.
Helpful Score: 1
Interesting look back on the lives of several families in the 50's.
An ending you would not expect.
An ending you would not expect.
Helpful Score: 1
The sadness of this beautifully written book will stay with me for a long time. Frank and April Wheeler live the "American Dream" in a Connecticut suburb in 1955, a period of apparent optimism and striving for upward mobility in the United States. Although part of the community, they continue to denigrate it, seeing themselves as somehow apart from the cliched materialism and posturing of their neighbors. Sadly, their aspirations to set themselves apart are not compatible with their capabilities. Eventually their arguments escalate to an unbearable pitch, and the reader sees them plunge toward an inevitable disaster. I greatly admire Richard Yates' craftsmanship in this absorbing and sobering novel.
Great book - real page-turner. Not for the faint of heart, however.
In the hopeful 1950s, Frank and April Wheeler appear to be a model couple: bright, beautiful, talented, with two young children and a starter home in the suburbs. Perhaps they married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is about to crumble.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
Great stories.
