'It's the complexity of the author's relationship to his characters - a complexity readers share - that most distinguishes Richard Yates as a fiction writer. He combines a searing, sometimes brutal clear-sightedness with an equally devastating sympathy.' You can read Lionel Shriver's full Introduction to Revolutionary Road in this Orange Inheritance edition published by Vintage.
This Orange Inheritance Edition of Revolutionary Road is published in association with the Orange Prize for Fiction. Books shape our lives and transform the way we see ourselves and each other. The best books are timeless and continue to be relevant generation after generation. Vintage Classics asked the winners of The Orange Prize for Fiction which books they would pass onto the next generation and why. Lionel Shriver chose Revolutionary Road. This is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple whose empty suburban life is held together by the dream that greatness is only just round the corner. With heartbreaking compassion and clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their hopes and ideals, betraying in the end not only each other, but their own best selves
'I can't think of a better novel to hand on to readers growing up today than Revolutionary Road.' Lionel Shriver
Author
About Richard Yates, Lionel Shriver
Richard Yates was born in 1926 in Yonkers, New York. After serving in the US Army during the Second World War, he worked as a publicity writer for the Remington Rand Corporation, and for a brief period in the sixties as a speech writer for Senator Robert Kennedy. His prize-winning stories first appeared in 1953 and his first novel, Revolutionary Road, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1961.He is the author of eight other works, including the novels A Good School, The Easter Parade and Disturbing the Peace, and two collections of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. Richard Yates was twice divorced and the father of three daughters. He died in 1992.
