Book Review: Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road
The Richard Yates back-story has passed into popular literary legend: the acclaimed author who never sold more than 12,000 copies per hardback, and whose works were largely out of print before being rediscovered posthumously and enjoying a revival. For a Yates novice such as myself this might seem a [...]
The road to perdition
March 22nd, 2009 · 6 Comments · Fiction
Tags:1950s·1950s America·abortion·April Wheeler·conformity·Frank Wheeler·Leonardo DiCaprio·marriage·masculinity·Richard Ford·Sam Mendes·suburbia
Book Review: John Updike - Rabbit Redux
September 2nd, 2008 · No Comments · Fiction
Apocalypse redux!
8.5/10
Following on from my post about John Updike’s seminal ‘Rabbit, Run‘, ‘Rabbit Redux‘ is the second in Updike’s quartet of novels chronicling the life and times of America as seen through the eyes of everyman Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Written - as with the other three - at the tale end of one decade (here, [...]
Tags:1960s·America·Black Power·civil rights·free love·freedom·Harry Angstrom·John Updike·Rabbit·suburbia·USA·Vietnam
John Updike - Villages
April 6th, 2006 · No Comments · Fiction
Small town affairs
7/10
John Updike’s ‘Villages’ savages US suburban life with its depiction of computer programmer Owen Mackenzie, the neighbourhood cuckold whose entire life seems to drift by in a succession of extra-marital affairs. As you would expect from Updike, this book is brimming with insights about middle-class America, told with the knowing wink and tongue-in-cheek [...]