Book Review :: Revolutionary Road

I've got to start reading things that aren't quite so depressing.

Last night I finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. It was published in 1961 and was nominated for the National Book Award that year.

This book is the story of Alice and Frank Wheeler, a married suburban couple with two kids. Basically, Frank hates his dull office job and Alice is a housewife who never made it as an actress. In an attempt to spice up their lives, they devise a scheme to move to France. They are so desperate to live a life that isn't cliched and boring that they begin to torture each other with unfulfilled expectations of themselves and each other. In the midst of their arguments and jealousies they decide that they can't to go to France when Alice discovers she is pregnant.

The book is bleak. It's filled with the reality of everyday life that isn't depicted very well in modern writing. What I found most interesting as I read is that there are some people who are able to find peace and contentment in an ordinary life while others, in the same circumstances, build lives that are destined to implode.

Revolutionary Road is a novel about implosion.

This was a difficult book to read - not because it was not well written. The prose and dialogue was beautiful. 

It was difficult to read because it was so believable.