14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Ordinary Reality., October 25, 2008
There are authors, the critics will tell you, that do their best to try to portray the life American. They reach in, they say, and pull out what it feels like to be an everyday Joe, living, breathing, working, making love, and dying. Readers flock to these types of authors because humans are, it seems, naturally disposed to enjoy watching the descent of those around us, especially those with whom we can relate. These authors are experts in showing us what it's like to be human. These authors are the experts in telling the stories of those around us.
Richard Yates is not one of those authors. For one, readers somehow never flocked to him. And more importantly, Richard Yates does far more than simply tell the stories of those around us. He tells us the story of ourselves. It's through this looking glass that we see not what life could be or should be. What Richard Yates gives us is a picture of what life is.
There are no happy endings. There are no great periods of redemption and reclamation. The boy doesn't always get the girl and the good side doesn't always win.
This is life. It is often sad. It is often brutal. And it is always, when you strip away the color, honest. So too is the writing of Richard Yates. And Cold Spring Harbor is no exception.
Admittedly, the writing itself can be garbled, and the storyline is not as tight as his other works (Revolutionary Road is brilliant). But the message is clear; our lives are more filled with hopelessness than with hope. With regret rather than triumph. And with sadness more than joy. This book, like his others is brutal, honest and true.
Four Stars.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Painful and brilliant ..., January 20, 2009
I read Revolutionary Road a few weeks ago (maybe 2 weeks ago) and immediately ordered a few more by Yates. I'm a big dummy for not knowing this guy sooner. He's a great writer and this particular novel doesn't skip a beat in comparison to Revolutionary Road (also brilliant). No plot reviews here (except to say when the car breaks down, some worlds change) ... buy the thing ... support the craft that is way too quickly dying from brain damaging electronics ...
Make believe I'm Obama and trust me on this book ... then order (or go to a library) and read it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
4.5/5 stars - another winner, October 20, 2011
I'm starting to feel a little sad because before long, I'll have read all of Richard Yate's books. A wonderful author who really only became recognized after his death. Fans love his marvelous portrayal of the all American family in the 1940-50s America, exposing their warts and all. With Yates, the reader learns quickly that oftentimes, life and relationships just plain suck, and some people just seem to create their own misery. Cold Spring Harbor, is such a story. It's about unhappy people who make bad decisions to perpetuate their misery. It's was a terrific reading experience.
The novel takes place in a Long Island, New York town just before WWII. The father figure, Charles Shepard, is a retired WWI Army officer who never fulfilled his military dreams. Three days before the war ended he began to lose his eye site. He marries a pretty girl named Grace, retires on a small Army pension, and buys a small house in Cold Spring Harbor, but their life is anything but happy.
Grace, is hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, acts like an invalid, and before long becomes an alcoholic. Her husband Charles does all the housework, the shopping and even fixes drinks for the two of them every evening. Their handsome son Evan's life is just as dysfunctional. He is obsessed with cars, gets in trouble, has fits of anger and no ambition. When Evan's first marriage ends quickly, the twenty-three year-old, moves back home with his parents. One day Charles decides to discuss the situation with his son, as Evan drives him to his eye appointment in Manhattan. When their car brakes down in Greenwich Village, they need to use a telephone and they end up at the pitiful home of Gloria Drake and her adult children Rachel and Phil.
"She may not have been more than fifty, but there wasn't much left of whatever she had in the way of looks. Her hair was a blend of faded yellow and light gray, as if dyed by many years of drifting cigarette smoke, and although you could say she kept her figure, it was such a frail, slack little figure that you couldn't picture it doing anything but sitting right here, on this coffee-stained sofa. Her very way of sitting suggested an anxious need to be heard and understood, and to be liked if possible: hunched forward with her forearms on her knees and her clasped hands writhing to the rhythms of her own talk."
Without giving out away too much of this brief (182 page) novel, I'll just say that things go from bad to worse for Evan, and really for both families for that matter. Yates demonstrates with unflinching honesty what can happen when people make bad choices in life. We see what can happen when unrealistic dreams go unfulfilled. Once again Yates has created sympathetic characters, brought together by chance and desperation, characters that you will not easily forget.
The character of Gloria Drake is said to be based on that of Ruth Yate's, mother of the author who had already passed away at the time this novel was written. From what I've read about Yates, most of his novels are based at least in part on real life situations.
This novel is beautifully written and did not disappoint. I would highly recommend it to everyone.
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