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Rating: Already after the first few pages a certainty, that "Revolutionary" in the title is no coincidence...
Imagine a man of our times enjoying a leap back into the 1950s to desecrate and massacre the stereotypical image of the model family of those years, just imagine it though because Richard Yates is not a man of our times, he is a man of the '50s and this is precisely what makes this novel prophetic and revolutionary.
April and Frank are the prototype of the classic American family. The nation is all focused on the future and eager to quickly leave behind the memory of the war's pains. The couple lives in this new era full of abundance as adults. A house in the suburbs of New York with a well-kept garden, two children (a boy and a girl, of course), home appliances, a few friends to share boozy relaxing moments with during the weekend. She is a housewife and he works for a big company in Manhattan, both representing the quintessence of American bourgeois conformism, yet they do not feel this way. Even though their youth in Greenwich Village is far away, they feel different from their neighbors who are conformed to the rules and unaware. However, two children and the daily routine are slowly destroying their peace and feelings. If in the early years of their relationship that sense of being different permeated their existence, now their free spirit hating the schemes and hypocrisy of the well-thinking people only emerges during evenings spent inebriated with friends or during their evening conversations after several glasses of iced whiskey. Around them, a whirlwind of unforgettable characters, each with their neurosis and broken life, complete the sketch of this human story.
From the very beginning, from their first devastating argument, the writer's magnifying glass gets closer and closer, outlining baroque profiles, and here April, angel of the hearth, is nothing but a neurotic dreamer full of regrets and frustrations. Frank, even worse, has put one foot in reality, finding the easiest job The Big Apple could offer him, a big company where he is just a number, one who sorts documents and spends his time finding the simplest way to get through the eight hours by engaging as little as possible. April, in a moment of "clarity," becomes aware that this routine could go on for years into old age until it kills them, and in her many hours of inactivity, a plan takes shape and form: to escape, start a new life in Europe, far from those stupid bourgeois, hypocritical, and unaware Americans... The plan, once shared with her husband, will give them a new moment of breath before the inevitable disaster that life seems to want to reserve for those who really can't conform to the rules.
It's not easy to find this book; now you can have the pleasure of anticipating its reading after ordering it. Searching for reviews on the Internet, I discovered that the film directed by Mendes of American Beauty will be released in January; then it will be available everywhere, and pages and pages will probably be written to justify the disappearance of this masterpiece from Italian bookstores for many years.
Even before it all happened, even before entire generations fell into the same quicksand as April and Frank, Richard Yates was there to tell us everything that was going to happen. At every stage of our lives, maybe asking if we are becoming like April and Frank could help us.
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