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This title in other editionsA Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yatesby Blake Bailey
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The first biography of acclaimed American novelist and story writer Richard Yates Celebrated in his prime, forgotten in his final years, only to be championed anew by our greatest contemporary authors, Richard Yates has always exposed readers to the unsettling hypocrisies of our modern age. Classic novels such as Revolutionary Road and The Easter Parade are incomparable chronicles of the quiet and not-so-quiet desperation of the American middle-class. Lonely housewives, addled businessmen, desperate career-girls and fearful boys and soldiers, Yatess America was a panorama of high living, self-doubt and self-deception. And in the tradition of other great realistic writers of his time (Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Cheever and Updike), Yatess fictional world mirrored his own. A manic-depressive alcoholic and unapologetic gentleman, his life was a hornets nest of childhood ghosts, the horrors of war, money woes, and ebullient cocktailed evenings in New York, Hollywood, and the Riviera. A Tragic Honesty is a masterful evocation of a man who in many ways embodied the struggles of the Great American Writer in the latter half of the twentieth century. Fame and reward followed by heartbreak and obscurity, Richard Yates here stands for what the writer must sacrifice for his craft, the devils bargain of artistry for happiness, praise for sanity. Review:"At times the sheer amount of information can be overwhelming....Apart from a tendency to throw in disruptive foreshadowing asides, Bailey has done a great job of sorting through the facts of Yates's difficult life, assembling them into a story that mirrors the best of his subject's fiction." Publishers Weekly Review:"[T]hough he spends many pages quibbling with bad reviews, the biographer doesn't really convey the qualities that make Yates's work so distinctive. And without that mitigating achievement, this author's life, retold at excruciating length, seems merely a sad, sordid waste." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Remarkably...A Tragic Honesty...manages to trump the author at his own game....Bailey demonstrates in crushing detail that almost all of Yates's fiction was painstakingly (emphasis on pain) faithful to his own experiences....A Tragic Honesty is admirably thorough." Michael Lowenthal, The Washington Post Review:"Bailey plumbs the thematic depths of Yates's stories and novels, using them to demonstrate the various ways in which Yates's art entwined itself with his life....The overabundance of banal detail sometimes makes this book a bit tiring to read, but overall it has all the hallmarks of a definitive biography, especially with its authenticity validated by the Yates family's cooperation." Library Journal Review:"If you did not love this handsome, terribly sick person in real life, as did so many of us in this good book, you will surely celebrate his gallantry in demanding of himself perfection in at least one part of his awful life, which was the words he put on paper." Kurt Vonnegut Review:"A Tragic Honesty makes clear once and for all that Richard Yates was both as hopeful and as tortured as his characters. The resemblance to Fitzgerald is terrifying — the booze and lonely rooms, the frittering away of a major talent. In resurrecting the lost world of this great American writer, Blake Bailey shows the same scrupulousness and unflinching eye as his subject, crafting an utterlying absorbing, horribly sad, and at times pathetically funny biography." Stewart O'Nan, author of Wish You Were Here Review:"Blake Bailey's compelling biography of Richard Yates tells a great, singularly American story about one of the greatest, most singularly American writers who ever lived. A Tragic Honesty is an honest tragedy. It is also a triumph." Mark Winegardner, author of Crooked River Burning Synopsis:Celebrated in his prime, forgotten in his final years, only to be championed anew by contemporary authors, Yates, author of classic novels such as Revolutionary Road and The Easter Parade, has always exposed readers to the unsettling hypocrisies of the modern age. 16-page photo insert. Synopsis:Celebrated in his prime, forgotten in his final years, only to be championed anew by our greatest contemporary authors, Richard Yates has always exposed readers to the unsettling hypocrisies of our modern age. In Blake Baileys masterful and entertaining biography, Yates himself serves as the fascinating lens into mid-century America, a world of would-be artists, depressed housewives, addled businessmen, high living, wistful striving, and self-deception. The story of Richard Yates here stands as a singular reminder of what the writer must sacrifice for his craft, the devils bargain of artistry for happiness, praise for sanity. Synopsis:Includes bibliographical references (p. [615]-650) and index.
About the AuthorBlake Bailey is the author of a previous book, The Sixties, and has written for a number of magazines, newspapers, and scholarly publications. He lives in Waldo, Florida, with his wife Mary. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue 1 Ch. 1 The Caliche Road: 1926-1939 7 Ch. 2 A Good School: 1939-1944 37 Ch. 3 The Canal: 1944-1947 75 Ch. 4 Liars in Love: 1947-1951 96 Ch. 5 The Getaway: 1951-1953 118 Ch. 6 A Cry of Prisoners: 1953-1959 159 Ch. 7 A Glutton for Punishment: 1959-1961 195 Ch. 8 The World on Fire: 1961-1962 238 Ch. 9 Uncertain Times: 1962-1964 286 Ch. 10 A New Yorker Discovers the Middle West: 1964-1966 321 Ch. 11 A Natural Girl: 1966-1968 364 Ch. 12 A Special Providence: 1968-1969 382 Ch. 13 Fun with a Stranger: 1970-1974 401 Ch. 14 Disturbing the Peace: 1974-1976 433 Ch. 15 Out with the Old: 1976-1978 463 Ch. 16 Young Hearts Crying: 1979-1984 492 Ch. 17 No Pain Whatsoever: 1985-1988 542 Ch. 18 A Cheer for Realized Men: 1988-1992 560 Epilogue 605 Notes 615 Index 651 What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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