A Special Providence: A Novel [Paperback]

Richard Yates (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312420404 | ISBN-13: 978-0312420406 | Publication Date: May 3, 2002

Robert Prentice is 18. His mother, Alice Prentice,is 53. Both are damaged souls: Robert, by war; Alice, by thwarted dreams of prosperity. In two deeply humanizing portraits, the great American writer Richard Yates crafts a novel of postwar America, at once at odds with its own sense of identity and mercilessly prohibitive to its like-minded citizens.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“What’s exhilarating about Yates is not his grasp of The Truth, but the purity of his vision and the perfection of his craft.” —Newsday

“Yates writes powerfully and enters completely and effortlessly into the lives of his characters.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[Yates] is an expert.” —Time

About the Author

Richard Yates is the author of the novels Revolutionary Road, A Special Providence, Disturbing the Peace, The Easter Parade, A Good School, Young Hearts Crying, and Cold Spring Harbor and the story collection Eleven Kinds of Loneliness. He died in 1992.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Picador (May 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312420404
• ISBN-13: 978-0312420406
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,992,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Yates was born in 1926 in New York and lived in California. His prize-winning stories began to appear in 1953 and his first novel, Revolutionary Road, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1961. He is the author of eight other works, including the novels A Good School, The Easter Parade, and Disturbing the Peace, and two collections of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. He died in 1992.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe his second best novel, February 26, 2003

By 

Geoff Schumacher (Las Vegas, Nevada United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Special Providence: A Novel (Paperback)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice piece of writing., August 16, 2010

By 

TChris (Tzer Island) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: A Special Providence (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

Yates tells two related stories -- one focused on a mother, the other on her son -- in quiet, elegant prose. The son's is a war story: a young soldier at the end of World War II yearns for heroism but, in small ways, consistently disappoints himself. His story is gripping, but in some ways his mother's smaller story is more compelling. Just as her son fantasizes about being a hero, she clings to an unrealistic vision of herself as a successful artist while enduring (bravely or blindly) the disappointments that comprise her life. Yates concludes the novel by bringing the two stories together in what seems like an inevitable conclusion to the mother's life of disappointment.

The mother and son are realistic, multidimensional characters. They aren't easy to like but, more importantly, they aren't easy to forget.

If you're looking for a happy, Pollyannish ending, this is a book you'll want to avoid. If you're looking for a wonderfully written novel about adversity that conveys a feeling of truth, A Special Providence is worth your time. If I could, I would give it 4 1/2 stars.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More mastery from one of America's best ever ..., March 29, 2009

By 

Charlie Stella (Fords, New Joisey) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Special Providence (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

This one was the perfect cap to the Yates collection for me ... mostly because now I can begin rereading his masterful collection, but also because it dealt with (I suspect) his time in the Army during the close of WWII. The back and forth, mom and son, worked well and Yates ability with open endings is overwhelming. Perhaps, the most underappreciated American writer ever, Yates is a pure pleasure to read. He knows how to touch on every single thread of the human condition and to make it vibrate so it can't be ignored.