Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road has not held up well over time. For one thing, the dialog may have been appropriate in the 50's, but today it sounds dated, with questions like "Are you sore at me?" and sentences frequently ending with "you see?". The subject matter is a little offbeat also. Frank and April are a young married couple with two children and consider themselves far too interesting to be living a conventional life in the suburbs. We're supposed to believe that April's unhappy childhood has rendered her incapable of love and that Frank's boring job is just a way station on the road to bigger and better things. To reach their true potential, April cooks up a half-baked plan to move to Europe, where April will be the breadwinner doing clerical work and Frank will have a chance to find himself. If this sounds to you like something that only artists or writers would do, then join the club—so do their friends and neighbors. Frank does, however, have the gift of gab, and a marketing flyer that he dictates off the cuff grabs the attention of a company executive, making the move seem less desirable. I'm not sure if there's a point being made here, but the book implies that hurtful words tossed out in a moment of anger produce dire consequences for this couple. They just did not seem real to me, but I'll bet that Kate and Leo bring them to life on the big screen.
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