Disturbing the Peace

Rating:

Judging purely on writing quality and style, I would have to give this book five stars rather than four, but it having left me more bummed than introspecting and given that this is, after all, a subjective review I've got to leave it with four stars. When reading Yates' books I'm always left with the impression that a mirror is smoothly and deftly being held to my face. Perhaps I won't dwell on what that may say about my personality or character.

Richard Yates tells the story of a man disconnected from a life that one could argue is successful and satisfactory. The man is not satisfied, though. He has a vague sense that he has missed out, been cheated of greatness, or at the very least deserves more than what he has settled for. He's an average guy in an average, yet successful, life and he just doesn't know how to cope with the feeling that something is missing. I reckon it doesn't help that he's also an alcoholic with significant mental issues. The intervention and guidance of friends and loved ones only makes things worse for him; after all, it's not the bottle's fault that he didn't get a prettier wife or the career that he wanted. One bad decision follows the next and the reader can't help but sense the dread and foreboding as each wrong turn brings his downward spiral into greater relief. I found myself thinking often, 'oh, this isn't going to be good...'

The troubling story of John Wilder ultimately felt like one man's desperation, one man's plight, leaving me sympathetic but slightly removed from his situation. The other thing that left me less absorbed in his character was that I felt that some of his individual and societal circumstance felt dated. Is it because alcoholism feels so much better understood today than forty years ago? Is it that therapy is less of a stigma now than it might have been then? Am I simply jaded? I can't put my finger on it, but Wilder's state just didn't feel as urgent, contemporary, and relevant as it might have. I can't help but compare at this point Yates' Revolutionary Road, where the theme of disenchantment from chasing the suburban American Dream seems just as compelling today as the day it was written.

Still, one doesn't have to be a schizophrenic alcoholic to suffer feelings of disillusionment, to sense that opportunities for something better, more fulfilling have escaped our grasp, to wonder how we got to where we are and ask the question 'Am I better than this?' In that sense, this is an effective allegory for 'everyman' that ought to give at least a moment's pause for most. It is a good, if heavy, read that will keep you turning pages even as you see John Wilder running headlong toward the precipice.

Rating:

Right off the bat I was engrossed in this book and the storyline. From the first page to the last I was anxious to see what else could possibly take place and how the ending would unfold. Lots of bad language is enclosed in this book, so if you're offended by foul language then its not for you. Coming from someone that leads this kind of life, as John Wilder does, the language is a given.

As an alcoholic, a cheater and a man with little self esteem due to his height, he dredges thru the trials of life that come so easily with his lifestyle.

I got mad and angry at how disrespectful he is with his life, his wife's life, his child's life and those around him. He is a very troubled alcoholic which leads to many other downfalls in his life.

I enjoyed reading this and it was very entertaining!

Rating:

Richard Yates is one of the great American authors, in there with John Cheever and John O'Hara, His book 'Revolutionary Road' is the best chronicle of the cancer in the bowel of the American dream ever written,(read the book, avoid the lousy movie). Disturbing the Peace is a gripping, impossible-to-put-down novel of an alcoholic on a self-induced downward path to madness; and while I appreciate that this doesn't sound like much fun, which it isn't, it is nevertheless superbly written and is a treat to read; rather like Phillip Roth but without the Jewish sensibility. It also teaches anyone who has had the experience of alcoholism in their life that the people who embrace it do so out of an almost willing self-destructiveness.. In the 34 years since it was written it has not dated by a word - it's a painful read but it's a fine novel by a great novelist.

Rating:

I'm a YATES sycophant ... this isn't his best, but it sure is his funniest. Yates is an American master ... I put him up there with Malamud and Steinbeck ... a notch above Hemingway, Updike & Roth.

READ EVERYTHING BY RICHARD YATES, AMICI ... YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED.

Rating:

There are books that make you think, and there are books that make you feel. Disturbing the Peace is both. It is the story of a man and his descent into insanity. But it is so much more than that. It is the story of ourselves, told quite plainly, and in such a way that, as a reader, it's very easy to slip in and out of the minds of all the characters, because they are us.

Disturbing the Peace made me think, feel, and believe that I was not simply watching this story unfold as it was told to me, but rather, I was a part of the story as it unfolded around me.

The brilliance of Yates is not in the writing. Rather, it's in the non-writing, that is, what he doesn't put on the page. And opening this book - and any of his books - you are invited to join in and watch or partake as the world crumbles.

Why the genius of Yates has never caught on, we'll never know. Perhaps people were afraid to peer into the stories and see such bold and disturbing representations of themselves and their lives.

Highly Recommended.

Five Stars.