![]() But that has not been the case.’ĭISCLAIMER: The articles on our website are not endorsed by, or the opinions of Shout Out UK (SOUK), but exclusively the views of the author.Richard Yates was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1949 and grew up in Victoria, B.C. The surface of his prose is so clear, in fact, and the people and events he writes about so average and identifiable, so much like the world we know, that it seems his books would merit a larger general audience than those of his more difficult literary peers. The only writer’s writer he might be compared to would be Chekhov, or perhaps Fitzgerald, though without Fitzgerald’s poetic flair. If anything, his work could be called simple or traditional, conventional, free of the metafictionalists’ or even the modernists’ tricks. There’s nothing fussy or pretentious about his style. ‘ wrote about the mundane sadness of domestic life in language that rarely if ever draws attention to itself. The writer also smoked heavily, yet quit a year prior to his passing. Yates died of emphysema, which he had for ten years, and complication from minor surgery in 1992. Yates was married twice, and had three children. The author married Sheila Bryant, daughter of British actor Charles Bryant, in 1948. The interest in his work has been sparked after his death, most likely due to the 2003 biography of the author by Blake Bailey, and the Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning film Revolutionary Road (2008), starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. In fact, none of his books sold over 12,000 copies in hardcover on their first edition. He was also the author of two short story collections, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love.ĭespite his rewarding career in journalism, teaching and fiction, there was not a huge amount of critical acclaim for Yates when he was alive. Subsequently, Yates taught writing at a number of academic institutions, including Columbia University, the New School for Social Research, Boston University, the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Wichita State University, the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing Program and at the University of Alabama. ![]() His first novel, Revolutionary Road, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1961. During his stint as a ghost writer, he briefly wrote speeches for Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Yates returned to New York City in 1946, where he worked as a journalist and freelance ghost writer. After leaving school, Yates joined the army and served in both France and Germany during the First World War. However, journalism was not the author’s first pursuit. ![]() The author moved between a number of different towns, and first became interested in journalism whilst at school in Connecticut. His early life was particularly unstable, with his parents divorcing when Yates was three years old. Yates was born on Februin Yonkers, New York. With remarkably autobiographical fiction, and notable works to his name including The Easter Parade, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and A Good School, Richard Yates wrote novels concerning self-deception, grief and the woes of suburbia. However, he never made the so-called ‘ literary big time’ whilst he was in his prime. Novelist and short story writer Richard Yates has been hailed as one of the best writers of the twentieth century. ‘How is it possible that an author whose work defined the lostness of the Age of Anxiety as deftly as Fitzgerald’s did that of the Jazz Age, an author who influenced American literary icons like Raymond Carver and Andre Dubus, among others, an author so forthright and plainspoken in his prose and choice of characters, can now be found only by special order or in the dusty, floor-level end of the fiction section in secondhand stores? And how come no one knows this? How come no one does anything about it?’ Chloë Moloney discusses the author Richard Yates, most often identified with the ‘Age of Anxiety’.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |