This collection is hands-down one of the best short-story collections I've read. Yates is a no-nonsense, straight-talking, highly skilled story teller with an intelligent voice who knows how to keep the reader genuinely engaged without sacrificing emotional depth or subtlety. Each and every story in this book is a winner: touching, honest, well-told, deeply felt. The collection is also a refreshing change from the morass of badly written contemporary short fiction that has taken the very worst from the minimalist movement (sometimes less IS less...). These are stories with meat on their bones--but no fat. HIGHLY recommended.

Richard Yates was a brilliant writer of novels and short stories who was universally admired by his peers including--among others--Tennessee Williams, John Updike, and Phillip Roth. His novel "Revolutionary Road" was considered groundbreaking when it was published in 1961. Never commercially successful after that, Yates continued to write and taught on a number of college campuses including the University of Iowa Writing Program. "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" is delicious.

The first piece of writing I read by Richard Yates was "The Canal," which was featured in the New Yorker earlier this year, at about the time this collection came out (I'm sure it was entirely coincidental). It wasn't a flashy story, just a tale that's set in the 50's about two couples at a party and the personal embarrassment that ensues as the main character remembers what a woeful soldier he was, especially compared to the decorated soldier to whom he ends up talking for the good part of the night. What I remember best about this story are two moments: one, where the platoon commander tells the main character that he gives him more trouble than anybody else, more trouble than he's worth, and two, the cold ending where nothing is resolved. After reading this story, I read Revoluationary Road and then The Easter Parade (both amazing works), and then came back to finish what I'd started.

"The Canal" is a good story, but it pales against the gems in this collection. Almost all of the stories from the first book, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, are just plain awesome. I'd say outside of "A Wrestler with Sharks" and "The B.A.R. Man," it's perfect. "Dr. Jack-O-Lantern" sets the stage for the black-comedy humiliations all the characters will be forced to endure. Yates spares no one from their designated doom, and boy, is it ever refreshing. The last story, "Builders," ends not as bitterly as the ones preceeding it, a fantastic way to finish the collection.

The second book, Liars in Love, differs from Eleven on both structural- and scope-levels. These stories are fuller and longer, and the histories of the characters more fleshed out -- and yet thematically, they are identical to Eleven: characters' foolish dreams are all squashed, obliterated -- and deservedly so. There are two related stories in this collection that are just laugh-out-loud funny -- one of them is "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired," and the title of the other one escapes me. They both feature the same batty mother, one who is not unlike Pookie of The Easter Parade. The gorgeous image of last story in the collection, "Saying Goodbye to Sally," may leave you in tears, so brace yourself.

The third book is the uncollected stories, and while it's more uneven than the first two, it is still very enjoyable, and for writers, invaluable. It's wonderful to see how some of these stories, like "A Clinical Romance," didn't quite work; finding ways to fix it up is a nice little exercise. Both "An Evening at the Cote d'Azur" and "A Convalescent Ego" are fantastic, right up there with the best of the other two collections.

Richard Russo's introduction is excellent -- his own "Yates story" is a nice personal tie-in, and everything he says is on the mark.

Some might complain that Yates wrote too many stories using the same locale (the TB ward probably being the most prominent repeat offender), but I didn't feel that way. "No Pain Whatsoever" and "Out with the Old" may both take place in the ward, but they are completely different stories. If I had to pick a favorite, it'd probably be "A Glutton for Punishment." What a perfect last line!

- SJW

It's perfectly understandable, I guess. His novels and stories move through detail after detail -- always thoroughly entertaining & bittersweet, but also muted. BIG MOMENTS don't scream at you; they happen & are absorbed into the fabric of each characters' lives -- simultaneously changing them and leaving them with every flaw perfectly in tact. His message is an unromantic one: pain doesn't create character; pain creates pain. Very few writers handle darkness as surely and poetically as Yates.

In every story & novel, Yates wastes no time getting to the matter at hand. This creates the impression that his will be an A-->B storyline, but Yates' detours are completely rewarding and earned. Rarely does anything feel forced or contrived in a Yates story. People act as people we know really act. Yates' dialogue is, in my mind, the best of any American post-war fiction writer -- it manages to be loose & realistic without relying on an onslaught of ums... ahs... or wells ...

Many of Yates' stories, as well as the novels "Revolutionary Road" and "A Good School" are nearly perfect, but it's quiet perfection, so he remains unfairly overlooked, while lesser writers get the gold star.

Richard Yates deserves to be as famous as Fitzgerald and Hemingway, but never overcame the awful compliment of "writer's writer." The tag is unfair: while Yates was among the greatest realist craftsmen in postwar American literature, there is nothing obscure or tricky about his work. On the contrary: the prose is always lucid and readable, the characters finely drawn, and one recognizes Yates's bleak but redemptive vision of life in terms of our own everyday struggles. The New York Times Book Review called his first collection, "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" (included in this volume) "the New York equivalent of 'Dubliners.'" And so it is. "The Collected Stories of Richard Yates" is more evidence (as if any more were needed) that Yates was a master--at least on par with those other chroniclers of the American middle-class: Cheever, Updike, and O'Hara.

A lot's been made of the fine "A Separate Peace," but "A Good School" brings Yates' eye -- which was one of the best, most unheralded of 20th century American writers -- to the twists of coming of age in a prep school. Nobody captured the shades and shadows of dialog like Yates, and few have made characters of any age so vivid in their grappling with pain and yearning. Anyone who's ever been a teenager will devour this novel.

That Richard Yates never made the gears of New York turn for him is an error of the publishing industry that's impossible to calculate; that "A Good School" is not mandatory reading for anyone interested in young people is a loss to every reader of the genre.

Richard Yates is one of the few truly great masters of 20th century fiction. His novels and short stories are populated with people who fiercely strive for what is just beyond their grasp, and who must - often quite painfully - suffer the consequences of their hopes and ambitions. The beauty of watching as these lives savagely unfold is the compassion Yates so delicately weaves into his depictions. First we feel a kind of condescending pity for these characters, then we find we are overwhelmed with their plight and their grief. And then finally the line between fiction and reality blurs, and we realize that these characters are not merely so much like us, they are us - with their denial and their fantasy and their unfounded hope in the future - and we grieve for them as we grieve for ourselves.
His short coming-of-age "A Good School" is something of a departure from the typical Yatesian heartbreak and squalor. In fact, the tone here, despite some shockingly grim and disturbing moments, is mostly upbeat. We follow the adolescent adventures of a boy named William Grove, a man with no real father figure (his parents are divorced) who tries to make a man out of himself after he is shipped to a boarding school designed for "individual" children who don't fit in elsewhere. Left to his own devices, without any real encouragement from the school or at home, and after several difficult missteps that nearly cement him as a permanent outcast, Grove slowly and unknowingly begins to make a name for himself by throwing himself into the only small door he is ever offered - the offices of the school paper.
The cast of the book is rounded out by in intriguing hodge-podge of boarding school characters, equally flailing around in their quest to become men. Even though their stories are unfolding off to the side, Yates somehow manages to tell each of their stories with a richness and intensity that belies their sparseness.
This is ground that has been covered before. One cannot help but think of other prep school novels (like Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and Hesse's "Beneath the Wheel") but even in familiar territory, Yates stakes out a claim all his own. This is a short, spare book filled with dozens of stories that build and develop throughout the novel. Old Yates fans will be pleased with this surprising detour into the world of adolescence, the unusual lightness of his tone, and the freshness of his view from this familiar literary perch. For new readers, I would definitely suggest reading the novel "Revolutionary Road," or some of the short stories first. But all in all, a must-read for everyone. I recommend it highly.

Yates dedicated this novel to his father, and rightly so. Men dominate this novel -- young men, old men, crippled men. In keeping with his trademark, Yates' characters are the losers of losers, yet you can't help but to feel for them. Even when Yates is describing one horribly embarrassing scene after another (and some are so painful that you almost have to look away from the page), his compassion for his people is ever vigilent.

This novel reminded me a lot of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. Like the George Willard in that quasi-novel, we have Will Grove, dipping in and out of the lives of various characters. The town of Winesburg was the center of that novel, and here it's Dorset Academy, the ultimate school for losers (what else would it be?). Although Winesburg was structurally a related collection of short stories while this is more of a novel, you still get that vignette-ish feeling as you read through A Good School, the way Yates joins quick scenes together. It works splendidly.

The book is framed by first-person narration that adds a very gentle touch. Yates always had a soft spot for the first-person narrator -- check out his short stories "Builders," "Jody Rolled the Bones," and "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired" for further evidence. This novel doesn't nearly have the sheer driving force of Revolutionary Road or the expert precision of Easter Parade, but it's not supposed to. It's a tender, coming-of-age tale, and it's done with a great deal of heart and love.

Sad, strong and unsparing. The story of two girls and where their lives take them. All about what people do to each other. Like a boxer that won't go down, the story just keeps swinging.

This is the mystery of Richard Yates: how did a writer so well-respected? even loved? by his peers,
a writer capable of moving his readers so deeply, fall for all intents out of print, and so quickly?
How is it possible that an author whose work defined the lostness of the Age of Anxiety as deftly as
Fitzgerald's did that of the Jazz Age, an author who influenced American literary icons like
Raymond Carver and Andre Dubus, among others, an author so forthright and plainspoken in his
prose and choice of characters, can now be found only by special order or in the dusty, floor-level
end of the fiction section in secondhand stores? And how come no one knows this? How come no
one does anything about it?
-Stewart O'Nan, The Lost World of Richard Yates (Boston Review)

Well, as it turns out, O'Nan did do something about. His essay, and similar proselytizing by Richard
Russo, got Yates back into print and earned the recent release of his Collected Stories genuine big
event status, with reviews and reappraisals in all the leading papers and journals. For now at least,
he's been rediscovered and restored to an exalted position. But if you read The Easter Parade, it's easy
to see why he faded away so fast; this isn't the kind of book that the intelligentsia would want people
reading, nor would they care to continue to face its ugly truths themselves.

In one of the most depressing opening lines you'd ever want to read, Yates let's the reader know
exactly what he's in for, and why :

Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the
trouble began with their parents' divorce.

The promise of the 60s was that the abandonment of traditional morality, family structures, traditions,
and beliefs would have a liberating effect and make all our lives better. But Yates proceeds instead to
show just how catastrophic these changes were. The older Grimes sister, Sarah, marries a man who
looks like Laurence Olivier, and despite an outwardly happy and comfortable life, ends up being
battered as they teeter on the brink of financial ruin.

Younger sister Emily becomes little more than a slattern, scrumping in parks and waking with
strangers, though she does have a couple of longer term relationships.

The troubles of both can be traced directly to the divorce of their parents. When Emily finds out that
her sister is being beaten by her husband, Sarah tells her :

It's a marriage. If you want to stay married you learn to put up with things.

Emily's prototypical affair is with Ted Banks :

...both felt an urge to drink too much when they were together, as if they didn't want to touch each
other sober.

The one sister is so desperate to hold her marriage together that she'll endure anything. The other is
so afraid of being rejected that she has to have serial relationships and to erect a haze of booze
between herself and her men.

The story is, in fact, soaked in alcohol. And it becomes clear that people use drink to avoid their real
selves, each other, and genuine interaction. It turns out that the "freedom" they've theoretically
gained has made them miserable, is even killing them.

Towards the end of the novel, after Sarah has apparently, though not officially, been killed by her
husband, one of her sons tells Emily :

'You know something? I've always admired you, Aunt Emmy. My mother used to say "Emmy's a
free spirit." I didn't know what that meant when I was little, so I asked her once. And she said
"Emmy doesn't care what anybody thinks. She's her own person and she goes her own way."

The walls of Emily's throat closed up. When she felt it was safe to speak she said 'Did she really
say that?'

Of course she's proud, an older sister pronouncing that she'd realized the dream of their generation, to
be free. But we, the readers, are privy to the awful truth : she's utterly alone, her past wasted, her
future hopeless, alcohol killing her as it killed her mother and father, and contributed to the death of
her sister. The hard won kudos of which she is so proud reads like a death sentence, not just for her,
but for all who thought that this atomized life would make them happy.

The book is exactly as depressing as it sounds like it would be, though there is much dark humor in
it. The story is direct and economical, covering the two women's lives in just over two hundred
pages. Most of all, it is devastating, a brutally honest depiction of tragic choices and truly empty
lives. No wonder he went out of print, the folks who foisted this culture on us were just destroying
the evidence, the way any guilt-ridden perps would..

GRADE : A

My God, how did Richard Yates fall between the cracks? This is an excellent novel, a compelling story told with seamless, word-perfect writing. Yet, as an avid reader of contemporary literature for at least 15 years now, I had not heard of Yates until very recently. After relishing "The Easter Parade," I intend to hunt down all of Yates' books. Which is not a simple task, since he's mostly out of print and hard to find even in the better used bookstores. "The Easter Parade" excels in at least two ways. First, it is extremely well written. Yates is not a flashy writer. His sentences are grammatically perfect and tightly crafted. There are no wasted or throwaway words. He stays out of the way of the story, which can be the hardest thing for a writer to do. Second, Yates crafts believable characters who live realistic, plausible lives. This could be a recipe for boring, but Yates deftly keeps the narrative moving at a brisk pace, covering about 45 years in 225 pages. Here's hoping for a Richard Yates revival, akin to the recent resurgence of interest in Charles Portis.

I haven't read this book, though I intend to soon and I've read everything (available) that Yates wrote.

I asked Andre Dubus once what he thought of Yates. "He's a hee-RO!" Dubus responded, in his Southern drawl. He meant it.

What happened to Yates was a travesty of letters, the kind of cruel and undeserved disregard that we like to think doesn't happen anymore. The same industry that dumped Yates lauds authors with a fraction of his talent and impact. Dubus was right on another point, which is quoted in this book: "Yates can never have too many readers, unless he has thousands and thousands of readers in many countries, and even that won't be enough."

This is truly a remarkable version (surely the best ever written) of Yates' life. The author seems to have had amazing access to family and colleagues of Yates. I am a Yates fan and have never seen such an indepth account of his struggles. A great read.

What makes Blake Bailey's account of Richard Yates's life inspiring is the dedication and integrity Yates had as an artist. That Yates not only managed to survive TB, alcoholism, schizophrenia, and the drudgery of working for hire in Hollywood is one thing, but that in the process he also managed to churn out fine semi-autobiographical novels and short stories is truly dazzling. Yates held true to his principles, never sacrificing the essence of solid storytelling and deftly drawn character for cheap or "unfelt" gimmicky fiction(dismissing the hip writers at Iowa, like Robert Coover, whom Yates reportedly loathed).

Like Yates's own work, this book is candid and moving, without ever being sentimental. Fine stuff.

Some have said this is Yates' weakest work, and I suppose it might be, but I think credit has to be given to Yates for even managing to pull this off. This is a tough story to write, a man's journey from sanity to insanity. Yates stays in his usual third person narration all the way, even when the main character goes completely nuts, so his delusions become our delusions.

It's not a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination - we see get a no-holds-barred view into Bellevue and the complete breakdown of the protagonist. There isn't a likeable character in the entire novel, which isn't that different from Yates' other works, but the problem here is that it's very tough to have any sympathy for the main character, John Wilder. In Yates' more successful books, no matter how nasty the characters, we can't help but to feel for their faults. Not so here.

Disturbing the Peace may not have the amazing pace of The Easter Parade or the driving power of Revolutionary Road, but it's still a pretty good read. It's a tough book to find nowadays, so if you can get your hands on it, pick it up.

In his writing classes, Richard Yates said that the most important thing to him, as a writer, was "telling the truth." He wasn't interested in pyrotechnics. He was interested in technique as an instrument to be used in "telling the truth." He had us read "In Our Time" and "Nine Stories." He respected accuracy, economy, the telling detail. He had no interest in the fancy, the glib. He was obviously deeply influenced by Hemingway. For my money, Yates is better. This masterpiece will tell you what it's like to crack up. No Hollywood, nothing fancy, no self-pity. Just "telling the truth." Read this, then read the rest of Yates. You won't be sorry. The guy knew what he was talking about.

this collection of short stories has been written by a man who may not have, when he initially began writing, floored his readers with an abundance of talent. but it is obvious that mr. yates has done his homework; his writing is tight and the words tremble with emotion. this is the work of a man who has spent a lot of time reading and revising and reworking until it felt just right. on most of the stories he hits all the right notes. the ones about tuberculosis stick in my mind the most with a particular resonance; he's got a feel for the throb of the misunderstood, the lonely. the problem with these stories is that their focus is on just that. mr. yates' title may've been eleven kinds of loneliness but i wish he hadn't felt as though it were necessary to confine himself to that topic. the last story really shows the flair he has for longer, more broad fiction; and because of this, the reader leaves slightly disappointed because the rest of the stories seem to be the work of a bitter man obsessed with bitterness. this wouldn't be a bad thing if the bitter man weren't capable of so much more.

To put it simply: you must read this book. It is the most depressing, uplifting, poignant, ironic book I've read. That may seem like a contradiction in terms, but if you've read the book you know what I'm talking about.

Richard Yates writes about ordinary men, women and children -- "loners" leading solitary existences. A few stories, such as "Doctor Jack-O'-Lantern" and "Jody Rolled the Bones", are filled with bittersweet humor; others, such as "Fun With a Stranger" are downright sad. But don't think Yates is some depressed, manic-depressive writer, because he's not. Rather, his words, his characters strike you in a way you never thought possible, making you want to read them over and over again.

You're likely to hear two thing about RR: it's a dark fifties anatomy of suburban emptiness and decay; and that it's a writer's novel, the unofficial progenitor of Richard Ford and Rick Moody. True, and true. If you haven't read it, do; but I wouldn't exactly say rush to do it. Yates hasn't aged all that well; there's an Elia Kazan feel throughout, of exaggeration verging on melodrama, and while Yates is sometimes capable of superb observation, he seems devoid of genuine sympathy. April Wheeler is better than her husband --more vital, more perceptive --but beyond that, emotionally damaged and corrosive. Many of the characters verge on being, though brilliantly drawn, typological cartoons. Nonetheless, there's a certain inexorable fascination in watching Yates send these people lurching into tragedy; and this book is very influential: given the durability of the suburbs, there will always be "suburban prose-poets," and they will always do well to study Yates before plunking away.

Richard Yates is not as well known as many other mid-20th century novelists, but he certainly should be. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD is as well written and intriguing a book as you're ever likely to read - a true modern classic. The plot concerns the increasingly unhappy marriage between surbanites Frank and April Wheeler. Many other authors have explored similar territory, notably John Updike (e.g., "Couples"). However, no one has done so with such deft and beautiful writing. The plot is ultimately somewhat incidental, and you'll likely figure out the resolution quite early. However, the brilliantly realized characters, including friends and neighbors of the Wheelers, make the book so worthwhile.

The meaning of the book is likely to vary for different readers; many people are likely to see an indictment of suburban life and values. I saw it more as pointing out the dangers of being unnecessarily dissatisfied with your life, and expecting brilliance where none exists. Whatever meaning you read into the novel, it's extraordinary. Most highly recommended!!!

Yates has been called a writer's writer which I suppose is to say he's a brilliant practioner of the craft. "Revolutionay Road" is a classic of fluid writing, integrating scenes and characters, shifting focus and perspective. Sometimes while reading a book, even by the most skilled of authors, readers will come across a passage they feel could have been written better, or see a poorly drawn character or suffer a weak description, there's nothing of the sort in "Revolutionary Road."

This is a story -- set during the post World War II boom -- of a suburban couple, living what would appear to be the middle class dream. But "Revolutionary Road" punctures the notion of normacly, giving dimension to its characters and stories behind them that explain their not-so-ordinary actions.

Any surprises are mild. Yates does not telegraph what will happen, he leads to events naturally and meticulously. No actions, no spoken words are without motivation. It is why events happen rather than what happens, that makes "Revolutionary Road" a great novel.

A Distant Second to Revolutionary Road.

Yates draws some compelling characters in this drama about a mother's inability to come to terms with a cruel world that doesn't give a damn about her 3rd rate artwork, and her son, a young private in the army during WWII. There were some poignant moments and Yates, as always, shows us the dirty underside of the american dream, but he strays too far from these strengths in A Special Providence.

Half the novel takes place in a war setting, and frankly, Yates' war-writing is some of the least memorable I've ever read. Try Mailer or Herr or Heller if that's what you're looking for. Another annoying tidbit is the repetitiveness of the narrative.

Anyway, it's a pretty good read, but nothing "great". Yates is better when he stays closer to home. This story is not as tightly wound as Rev Road, and we don't care about the characters nearly as much. Okay, that's my two cents.

Richard Yates is underappreciated. The general reading public doesn't know him. He had all but faded into literary history after his death until a recent short story collection revived interest in his work. But discerning readers of modern fiction have always placed him in the same literary class as John Cheever, John Updike and the other better-known modernists of the second half of the 20th century. His best-selling and arguably best novel was his first, Revolutionary Road, which captured 1950s suburban angst about as well as anybody. His second novel, which was published fully eight years later, is A Special Providence. It is not well known but it, too, is an excellent work. It tells the story of a mother and her son. It focuses partly on the mother's constant and fruitless search for artistic respect and financial security as well as on the son's experiences during World War II. Unlike some Yates novels, A Special Providence holds together from beginning to end. But it is especially strong in describing the son's relatively brief and unfulfilling war experiences in the European theater. Yates certainly isn't known as an adventure writer, but A Special Providence reveals his ability to create a compelling, fast-paced narrative when the story calls for it. In fact, Yates is at his best when he is in the midst of a strong bit of narrative. Some of his other novels ultimately failed, and failed to draw readers, because they descended for prolonged periods into plodding narrative and excessive introspection. This doesn't happen much in A Special Providence, and that's why it's at least his second best novel.

This book was a good resource for things to do in California, but we tried two of his inexpensive hotel recommendations, and both were terrible - and we're not picky! Also some of the phone numbers were incorrect. There were some good local area maps. Overall, the Fodor's guide is much better.