A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates

Rating:

Bailey has a great style that was also evident in his biography of John Cheever. His research is thorough and takes details of Yates' life and makes direct relationships to passages from his work. As a biographer, Bailey is appropriately detached from his subjects for objectivity but it is evident that both Yates and Cheever are individuals he respects and ensure that they receive fair and balanced treatment.

It is inevitable that A Tragic Honesty builds towards Yates' most admired work, now a classic suburban tale, Revolutionary Road. And, once published, all else seems less important. Yates even predicted his obituary would read with a distinct bias towards this one work.

This is attributed to many critics opinions that his book was less fiction and more biography of Yates' own life. Indeed those parallels exist as key events in his life were obvious inspiration for many of his stories; his frustrated sculptress mother, army service, health, journalism, PR and marketing at Remington Rand, and time in Europe (or preparing to leave for Europe), all appear time and again in his novels and short stories.

Childhood was a deep well for Yates. Bailey opens the biography with, "If the prerequisite of any great writer's life is an unhappy childhood, then Richard Yates was especially blessed." He had an iconoclast for a Mother and an absent and soon deceased Father. Like many famous writers, he struggled with several demons at once. For Yates this was alcohol, cigarettes, poor health (tuberculosis, emphysema and pneumonia), poverty, and arguably, bouts of unstable behavior bordering on insanity.

Yate's writing is best described by Richard Russo who provide the introduction to the Collected Stories of Richard Yates. He likens reading Yates to "the exhilaration of encountering, recognizing, and embracing the truth". Not all of Yates' stories are individually strong but in the aggregate they offer up a journey into uncomfortable lives and the dangerous situations we humans create over the lengths of our lives and in the depths of our relationships. Yates said of his characters, "all rush around trying to do their best - trying to live well, within their known or unknown limitations, doing what they can't help doing, ultimately and inevitably failing because they cannot help being the people they are. That's what brings about the calamity at the end."

Yates was a speechwriter, a corporate PR and marketing man, a screenwriter, and strangely, the inspiration for a character on a Seinfeld episode. He had two marriages, three daughters, and made a mark on 20th century writing that requires further exploration that only time can provide. That is not to say that Bailey has not done his homework. l loved the little stories like a young Richard Yates once living in Beechtwig prior to Cheever living there. And that Yates called Cheever, "A dirty old man", who used prose to the detriment of structure. Yates just needs more attention and analysis.

"Success and failure are both difficult to endure," wrote Joseph Heller and accurately Bailey makes the point that Yates had great trouble with these two states. His obituary called him a "Chronicler of Disappointed Lives" and this biography is titled, "A Tragic Honesty". Both conjure darkness and pain - apt imagery for Yates' life.

Rating:

Well written and thought out (the author showed much humor and compassion) - that said, Yates was someone whom you want to read, but I wish I did not learn so much about him. The sheer repetitiveness of his misfortune regarding his own "human condition" does not make for anything really illuminating about a typical non-recovering alcoholic "Genius".

Although I did admire Yates' Revolutionary Road his portrayal of total dissatisfaction and uncompromising mediocrity seems almost unreasonable. Interestingly enough in real life his wife was more pragmatic that the heroine in RR. It is almost as if he never met anyone in his life to admire. I will real more of his works as "The Easter Parade" sounds like it might be a masochistic pleasure.

His lack of interest in any female that was not "good looking" and his all out contempt for Homosexuals was saddening. I hate finding out when artists are that limited, although he might have been quoted saying things he really did not feel deeply, as many people rag on people who are less than ideal, often due to their own insecurity or just to be amusing. I'd like to believe that was the reason for his crassness.
There is a very thorough analysis of his work ----- and that would be of value for a real fan of Yates.

Finally, this book is a real investment in time.

Rating:

This bio pulls no punches,this a excellent,gripping, read,but I will reread this again in a few years.This man is absolute turd as female myself I am amazed how women throw themselves at man just because a man is an artist of somekind and how people just willing to make excuses for him just because he's a writer.I have to admit he seems to very dedicated to his daughters,but he also but unreasonable demands on them and other women as well I almost couldn't almost go through with the book. The shallow,backward,sexist way he wiewed women and something and or someone was always at fault why the women in life always ( for good reason) left him ,in his misguided vision it's never his.Mr Yates seems never want to leave the fifties.It never occurred to him there are a lot of women writers that surpassed him in importance.The point is he's an important writer and this is an engrossing read and the sad subject will leave you gripped, as much I disliked Richard Yates personality,I have to hand to Blake Bailey he should get somekind of literary award he knows his subject. This excellent literary biography is worth spending time with a selfish,sexist, lunatic subect!

Rating:

Richard Yates is stranger than fiction, which makes for fascinating reading. The amount of misery he himself endured, and the pain he inflicted on those around him are incomprehensible. Richard Yates's mental and physical comebacks are the amazing part of his life story. And the remarkable disconnects--his books are about self-deception, but their insights seemed to have eluded him in life.

Rating:

After reading Revolutionary Road , I was interested in the life of Richard Yates. Blake Bailey's biography was an in depth, well written account of Yates's life while still being extremly readable. I found myself unable to put the book down at times. Although it is very detailed and fact filled , instead of being dry, it read like a novel. I would highly recommend this book and look forward to reading Bailey's biography of Cheever. I am hooked.