April goes from being full of pity, to self absorbed to stepford wife, back to selfish. I don't feel April has projected her needs onto Frank. I think he is very selfish too, and the only reason he married her, was he thought she would praise him.
I've often felt the absence of feeling when a loved one was dying, and yet the world went about it's business as usual. It is a fact of life, but one that is difficult to understand.
I find, that if I had met these people in real life, I would not have befriended any of them, except for Mrs. Givings. Although I feel she used Frank and April to guide her son, it was a bad choice in the first place.
As far as Frank giving his children to his brother, I am not surprised. Now he can go out and find that praise that he so longs for, without the burden of his children. Very sad indeed.

My question for Mr. Bailey would be about the Author's life. Did he have a family, children? Was this story typical of the era, or typical of him? Does he feel the story was written in reaction to an event in history, in his life?

I simply couldn't put this book down. I was ahead of the discussion points every time. If there is/was a more depressing couple in literature, I don't remember them. I was fascinated by the way the author was so in the heads of his characters. I didn't care for April throughout the entire book. She seemed too self-centered and almost had a dual personality. Guess today she would be diagnosed as bipolar. I was wanting to get more into the children and how they were affected by living with these two people.

I felt as if this book ended in two deaths-that of April and Frank. Could this have been Yates' intention by ending the story with the sad conclusion of Frank's current life? It seems that Frank ends up a shell of the man he used to be-his spark is gone. His voice is gone. Shep goes into this sad description of Frank's current life in response to Milly referring to him as courageous.
Such a tragic story! I think the only other literary couple who came close to being this sad are George and Martha from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Like that story, Revolutionary Road was like that horrible car wreck on the side of the road-you know you shouldn't look, but can't help but stare.

Yes, I feel that both Frank's and April's voice was absent by the end of the book. Even the children's were gone (not that they had much voice to begin with). The voice is that of onlooker's. The main characters have lost themselves entirely in their own misery. Ver sad story.

I have another quick question for Mr. Bailey. This is the first novel I've read by Richard Yates. What other novels by Mr. Yates do you recommend?

I think the abortion/suicide was used as both. I think April would have been happy with either conclusion. Using her voice made me like her very much and wish that she had a different path to follow. As a psychologist, I know that much of what shapes us is what happens to us when we are children. From there, we either conform to what we are taught or rebel against it. I think April was dealt a poor hand and in return made a poor choice. Wow, what a story.

I found this book, like some others of you, to be extremely boring. I had a difficult time getting through it.....I kept waiting for it to get better but it never did. I'm sorry to those of you who enjoyed it, but I cannot imagine making a movie from this book!

I too found the end of this book sad and depressing. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad it wasn't the first book chosen for this Book club! I think April was pretty sure things would go badly for her, but she didn't care anymore. It was generous of her to leave that note for Frank, since I think he was somewhat responsible for her actions. I think mostly she wanted to escape her life, and now that they weren't going to Europe, this was the only out she could see.
I'm now reading science fiction to get over the sadness of the end of this book. I don't think I'll watch the movie, but I'll probably rent it later on, just to see if it stays true to the book. I already heard (in an interview) of a scene that I don't remember from the book. Even today some of the topics from this book will be controversial if they're in the movie.
Thanks for leading the discussion, Kristin! I think you did a great job and hope you'll be back in the near future.

Though the characters and the plot, especially the ending, were pretty depressing, I still found this book very compelling. The chapter told from April's point of view (finally) explained a lot about who she was, but I still don't think it was enough. I would be interested in reading a metafictional novel pertaining to this story, where all the events that occurred in "Revolutionary Road" were told from April's point of view.

Even though events kept getting worse and the characters kept getting more out of control I had to stick it out to the bitter end and so it was.
-I could not enjoy reading about the ridiculous behavior of these two people in the beginning. But then I began to appreciate Mr. Yates' narrative talent and writing style. For example the way he brought us up through the (pre) climax of: baby/no baby. To Frank a game for April a torment.
-In the end Frank (and the children) just seem to melt away by what we gather from Mr. Yates' dialog.
-A very sad ending to a pitiful story.

To Kristin
-Thank you for guiding us through "Revolutionary Road" a rather challenging
book. Enjoyed your comments. They were very helpful.

Allison, What does metaphysical mean?

I meant metafictional

Metafiction is a genre of literature that often involves a different author revisiting a previous novel and telling it from a different perspective. A good example is Jane Ryhs' "Wide Sargasso Sea," which tells the back story of the crazy woman locked in the attic in Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre."
I think it would be interesting to read "Revolutionary Road" from April's perspective. I had a hard time sympathizing with her, even though it's clear she was incredibly unhappy with her choices and life in general, because Yates never really provided an intimate connection to her character.
I'd also like to thank Kristen for leading this discussion. You obviously put a lot of thought and time into it, and I've really enjoyed taking part!

I had trouble getting through this book. I am not sure if it was because I knew from the start that the main characters suffered a series of disappointments or whether it was the total disconnect I felt from them. The constant reference to smoking was a huge turnoff (yes I realize it was a different era but still). and there were certain other behaviors I did not condone which turned me off to their characters and the story in general. I just kept hoping against hope that the book would turn around somehow and it never did. I am curious to see how Hollywood embellishes this to be a movie.

I just saw the movie Synecdoche, New York last weekend and although it was brilliantly written and conceived, on the depressing scale it made this book look like a walk in the park. I was sort of sorry to have two "downers" affecting my thinking over the Thanksgiving weekend, when trying to focus on all the things that make me grateful and happy! Nonetheless, I was very impressed throughout the book by Yates descriptive abilities; I found his characters were very real people to me, and since I was born not long after the story took place, could relate easily to the picture of life that was painted. Back then negative stuff was very much covered up, kept in private living rooms, so this book must have been quite a shocking expose at the time, though certainly individual readers could internally identify with big chunks of it. Thankfully, I came from a happier family, but my parents' marriage did end in divorce later for some of the same reasons - sliding into a relationship neither fully wanted, my mom not really loving my dad, and so on. Except for the excessive drinking and smoking, which were not present in our household, this book did help me understood the motivations and limitations of these people, which in turn shed some light on the young adult life of my own parents, aunts and uncles, their friends, etc. - this was always rather mysterious to me as a child. I liked seeing things from Frank's perspective because as a woman it gave me an insight into how a fairly egocentric, regular white-collar guy thinks, and made some sense of how truly oblivious he was to his complex wife. As for April, I have a fair amount of sympathy for her. She was not equipped to be a mother and she was trying pretty hard, in her own way, to turn things around for her marriage and family - but she couldn't cope with the massive failure that ensued. The portrait of Mrs. Givings in her personal chapter was amazingly insightful of Yates. I liked what some of you said about Frank dying off too at the end of the book...it's like we were inside his head most of the time and then suddenly we're out and he's just another cog in the wheel of the big city. It all is very sad, of course, but in an instructive sort of way - we can learn from them and be more compassionate in our own lives.

Hi Chris & Erika, I have Blake Bailey's answers for you below:

Chris H: Yes, Yates had a family: April Wheeler was loosely based on his first wife Sheila (to whom the book is dedicated), and the Yates family spent one very unhappy year living in a ranch house in Redding, Connecticut. Sheila's mother provided the model for the un-giving Mrs. Givings, who was also a real-estate agent in western Connecticut, and whose son Charlie suffered from mental illness and was, by all accounts, John Givings in the flesh. Other parallels: Yates, like Frank Wheeler, had a numbingly dull job throughout the '50s as a writer of PR copy for Remington Rand, maker of the UNIVAC computer and model for Knox Business Machines. And finally Yates did have children, two daughters, to whom he was touchingly devoted (unlike either Frank or April Wheeler) despite his own troubles with alcoholism and mental illness. Was the novel typical of its era? Yes and no. Sloan Wilson wrote a novel about the suburban Organization Man called THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT, which is interesting as a period piece but nowhere near the quality of REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. Other writers--O'Hara, Marquand, Salinger, Updike, Cheever (my latest biographical subject)--have written superbly about postwar suburban life, but, well, Yates is Yates.

Erika: In early January 2009, Knopf is publishing a moderately priced "Everyman" edition of Yates's three greatest books: REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, THE EASTER PARADE, and his marvelous story collection, ELEVEN KINDS OF LONELINESS. I can heartily recommend all three, and if you like them, you might also like LIARS IN LOVE (another story collection), A GOOD SCHOOL, and/or DISTURBING THE PEACE.

Here is the link for the Everyman edition: http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Easter-Parade-Eleven-Loneliness/dp/0307270890/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228949225&sr=8-1

Interesting comments from everyone. I actually liked April better at the end than I did at any other time in the book. I think she finally realized that her real life was in fact much like the play that started out the book. It was not real and she had never faced her true feelings. However, it was just too late. I think she saw the baby as the final straw that ruined her hope for a change in their lives. I am not sure she meant to kill herself, but I think she figured she would rather die than live as she had been living, so it was worth the risk. She obviously planned for that possibility.
Frank was certainly a shell of a man in our last picture of him, but I thought it was interesting that he was going to counseling. Besides the effects of losing April, perhaps some of the emptiness was his coming to realize how empty his whole life had been. I would like to think that as the years go by, he settles into some kind of peace with who he is and what his selfish mistakes have cost him. But, with Frank, who knows.
The Campbells don't change at all. They are the characters that just stay on the same path all the way through, never progressing. I found that I liked them even less than Frank and April at the end.
I enjoyed this book and I am glad that I have read it, but I would not rank it as a favorite. There were a lot of struggles during that decade after the war (I was a child during that time) and many who had served in the war brought back issues that their families had to deal with. The same is true today. Women really were pigeon-holed into a certain life and their own identities were less important than their families. Those who broke that mold had to really be confident in themselves. There were many things that were simply not discussed - mental illness, abortion, psychological problems, etc. Even so, I don't think that most people of that time were as miserable as this group of characters. My own childhood was extremely happy, not much different than most of my friends. But, there were issues that others had to deal with and I do remember some of those examples.
Thanks for leading the discussion. It has been worthwhile.

Interesting comments from everyone. I actually liked April better at the end than I did at any other time in the book. I think she finally realized that her real life was in fact much like the play that started out the book. It was not real and she had never faced her true feelings. However, it was just too late. I think she saw the baby as the final straw that ruined her hope for a change in their lives. I am not sure she meant to kill herself, but I think she figured she would rather die than live as she had been living, so it was worth the risk. She obviously planned for that possibility.
Frank was certainly a shell of a man in our last picture of him, but I thought it was interesting that he was going to counseling. Besides the effects of losing April, perhaps some of the emptiness was his coming to realize how empty his whole life had been. I would like to think that as the years go by, he settles into some kind of peace with who he is and what his selfish mistakes have cost him. But, with Frank, who knows.
The Campbells don't change at all. They are the characters that just stay on the same path all the way through, never progressing. I found that I liked them even less than Frank and April at the end.
I enjoyed this book and I am glad that I have read it, but I would not rank it as a favorite. There were a lot of struggles during that decade after the war (I was a child during that time) and many who had served in the war brought back issues that their families had to deal with. The same is true today. Women really were pigeon-holed into a certain life and their own identities were less important than their families. Those who broke that mold had to really be confident in themselves. There were many things that were simply not discussed - mental illness, abortion, psychological problems, etc. Even so, I don't think that most people of that time were as miserable as this group of characters. My own childhood was extremely happy, not much different than most of my friends. But, there were issues that others had to deal with and I do remember some of those examples.
Thanks for leading the discussion. It has been worthwhile.