The Collected Stories of Richard Yates - Hardcover

Yates, Richard; Russo, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805066934 ISBN 13: 9780805066937

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 2001

Synopsis

A literary event of the highest order, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates brings together Yates's peerless short fiction in a single volume for the first time.

Richard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate, and technically accomplished writers of America's postwar generation, and his work has inspired such diverse talents as Richard Ford, Ann Beattie, André Dubus, Robert Stone, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. This collection, as powerful as Yate's beloved Revolutionary Road, contains the stories of his classic works Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (a book The New York Times Book Review hailed as "the New York equivalent of Dubliners") and Liars in Love; it also features nine new stories, seven of which have never been published.

Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers, the grim humor that atts life on a tuberculosis ward, or the moments of terrified peace experienced by American soldiers in World War II, Yates examines every frayed corner of the American dream. His stories, as empathetic as they are unforgiving, are like no others in our nation's literature. Published with a moving introduction by the novelist Richard Russo, this collection will stand as its author's final masterpiece.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Yates was the author of the novels Revolutionary Road, A Special Providence, Disturbing the Peace, The Easter Parade, A Good School, Young Hearts Crying, and Cold Spring Harbor. He died in 1992.

Reviews

Bitterness, loneliness and lack of fulfillment are the central themes of this grim posthumous collection. Yates (1926-1992) was the consummate writer's writer; his fiction influenced a generation of young admirers, including Andre Dubus and Richard Ford, but he has yet to achieve the name recognition of many of his disciples. This collection of 27 stories, seven previously unpublished, but most reprints from two long-out-of-print collections issued in 1962 and 1981, may change that. Yates is a gifted storyteller, particularly skilled at making emotional pain and sadness starkly real as his characters manage to live below even their own meager expectations. Compulsive failure Walter Henderson, the protagonist of "A Glutton for Punishment," plans his life as a series of expected defeats. In "The Canal" two veterans play at macho one-upmanship with phony war stories as their wives snicker with disdain. "A Clinical Romance" tells of the bickering and despair of men confined to a tuberculosis ward in a gloomy Virginia hospital. "Evening on the Cte d'Azur" is an achingly sad tale of lonely navy wives with too much time on their hands and too little self-esteem. Pitch-perfect in their gloomy detachment, these stories about the fractured relationships of lovers, friends, parents and children, and husbands and wives ring all too true. Yates's powerful dialogue and narrative make it entirely clear that no matter what, people are going to be only as happy as they have already made up their minds to be. (May 3)Forecast: A heartfelt introduction by Richard Russo expresses just how much Yates once meant to younger writers. If reviews make the stories' appeal similarly plain to today's readers, the collection should do well; in any case, it will remain a strong backlist title for years to come.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

No public library catering to short story lovers should be without this career-encompassing collection of the work of an important American story writer. Yates never sold very well during his life (he died in 1992), but he is remembered among literary-fiction readers for at least one of his novels, Revolutionary Road (1961), as well as for his short stories. Without ever seeming to retread the same story, Yates nonetheless worked and reworked the theme of personal failure, exploring its ramifications and explanations. But with each new story, each new variation on that theme, he brings his readers to a closer, clearer picture of frustration and loneliness--and how they relate to lack of achievement. Many of his stories are set during World War II, notably among them "Jody Rolled the Bones," about how an army platoon came to appreciate its training sergeant. All of his stories have an old-fashioned air about them--not necessarily in their telling, but in the settings and situations. That said, Yates still deserves a wider audience among contemporary fiction readers. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Yates, who died in 1992, was never commercially successful, but his work was highly respected by other writers. This book includes stories from his collections Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love, as well as nine other stories, seven of which have not been previously published. Autobiographical threads are found throughout: young soldiers in the waning days of World War II, tuberculosis patients, struggling writers, alcoholism. Despite the general pessimism of the stories, they never seem contrived or self-indulgent. The earlier stories' economy gives way to a relatively formless later style, which presents more character development and subtext than is found in many novels. Recommended for all academic and larger public libraries. Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Yates's stories have too long been out of print, and as a result an entire generation of readers will be coming to Yates for the first time, and for such readers it is my special honor and pleasure to introduce the fictional world of these stories, to suggest how and why they work on us, and to speculate upon what sort of man would usher them into the world. I'm confident that these readers will not need me to tell them how great the stories are, or what a cause for celebration it is that they are finally restored to print, or that no one who pretends interest in American literature, or in the history of the contemporary short story, can afford to be without them.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805066934
• ISBN 13: 9780805066937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496