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Loading... Cold Spring Harbor (edition 1986)by Richard Yates
Work detailsCold Spring Harbor by Richard Yates
None. Do not read this expecting to be uplifted - it is a well written account of sad suffocating lives. ( )One word can summarize this book. Disappointment. No, not in the writing or in the book itself, but disappointment by the male protagonists. Father and son, Charles and Evan Shepard, both fail to live out a dream of being a war hero. Charles arrived in France three days after the Great War ended and Evan doesn't pass the army physical after Pearl Harbor. These big disappointments early in the book pave the way for the drab realities of life in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, New York. Yates sets the right tone in the vapid dialogue that characterizes the dailiness of ordinary lives. The despondency is palpable throughout the book in the quiet desperation of people trampled down by the vagaries of lost opportunities and downright bad luck. Richard Yates can make eavesdropping on the most pitiful of situations a captivating endeavor. Incredibly depressive, to me same feeling as "Revolutionary Road". These people are so trapped, can't break free. Although not long (178 pages), this book has kept me thinking about each of the characters and their future long since I finished reading. Yes, it has similar themes to Revolutionary Road, but there's something about the way Mr Yates writes... he perfectly captures the annoying traits of your mother-in-law, awkward adolescence and the way you still can't figure out where you're going even when you're an adult. Everything is beautifully and succinctly put. A fantastic read. I love books and stories by Richard Yates. They are full of dashed hopes but are beautifully written. The first sentence of chapter 11 is quite typical. `Rachel came carefully downstairs one morning, in a dressing gown that wasn't quite clean'. However hard people try, they are stained or tarnished. no reviews | add a review
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