Young Hearts Crying [Import] [Hardcover]

Richard Yates (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Methuen (January 9, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041359730X
• ISBN-13: 978-0413597304
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Torture! Whiskey! Suffering!, November 30, 2009

By 

Doc Occula "I Can Has Cheezburger?" (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Young Hearts Crying (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

I think I've found my author. You know, that person whose work you are more and more compelled to read every time you read something else they've written? Even if that work is ultimately depressing or heart-wrenching or terrifying?

'Young Hearts Crying' has been re-issued by Vintage Contemporaries with a pile of lousy editing errors (come ON, guys!!) and some stunning cover art direction, and thank heaven for it. I was having trouble finding Yates in used bookstores, and now, because of 'Revolutionary Road,' he's baaaa-ack. Back with all the agony of the 'Age of Anxiety,' with a fundamentally depressing group of delusional, failing characters, and with a plot that lowers the reader deeper and deeper into their neuroses and desires, both deserved and ridiculous. I was fascinated with the cruelty with which Yates methodically tore apart each character, so that their whims gained equal weight as their real work. How does he do that, and with such diffident, casual prose? Amazing!

I'm sure Yates's battered vision of a lost era isn't for everybody. Aficionados of 'Mad Men,' with its glossy looks and measured pain, might find the source material too unrelenting, too stricken. But if you're up for it, this is a pretty extraordinarily written book.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another GREAT Yates novel ..., March 21, 2009

By 

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

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This review is from: Young Hearts Crying (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

Young Hearts is yet another "must read" Richard Yates novel loaded with killer scene closers (one that had me speak out loud on the staten island ferry this week) ... another that left me uplifted (the end of the book).

Yates knew people; their speak and their demons and he was a master at presenting emotionally crippled lives in raw form ... whether they sink or swim.

READING is what it's all about, amici ... and Yates' Young Hearts Crying is truly a MUST READ.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, November 29, 2009

By 

meltheobscure "moviefan" (usa) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Young Hearts Crying (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

What does it take to be an artist? Is it important to be one? This book is a touching discourse on those questions.

After comtemplating a couple of weeks on this book I am going to up my rating as I considered the questions that the novel was asking and actually believe it is even a better (more realistic) piece than the dramatic Rev-Road. And just as good as the more celebrated "Easter Parade".)

Often it is said how sad and hopeless Yates' stories are, but they actualy enjoyable in there truth when one reached that "ah ha" moment in the climactic moments. While the characters do not vibrate off the page, the events and conclusions do - I feel that although his characters do not have glorious victories, they are given a fair chance at an almost zen like acceptance --- I do not want to give anything away, but readers must really watch what goes on in the very last pages to get the the message of these tales.

I read the original, negative NYT review for this and was amazed at by what I consider the shallowness of the writing that was and still is accepted as the "The News Paper of Record"