The Collected Stories of Richard Yates - (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A literary event of the highest order, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates brings together Yates's peerless short fiction in a single volume for the first time.

Richard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate, and technically accomplished writers of America's postwar generation, and his work has inspired such diverse talents as Richard Ford, Ann Beattie, André Dubus, Robert Stone, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. This collection, as powerful as Yate's beloved Revolutionary Road, contains the stories of his classic works Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (a book The New York Times Book Review hailed as "the New York equivalent of Dubliners") and Liars in Love; it also features nine new stories, seven of which have never been published.

Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers, the grim humor that attends life on a tuberculosis ward, or the moments of terrified peace experienced by American soldiers in World War II, Yates examines every frayed corner of the American dream. His stories, as empathetic as they are unforgiving, are like no others in our nation's literature. Published with a moving introduction by the novelist Richard Russo, this collection will stand as its author's final masterpiece.

Review Quotes

"Unflinching and uncompromising, complex atthe same time they seem to unfold naturally andsimply....Miraculous." --Ann Beattie

"A superb collection...a laureate of romantic loneliness." --The New York Times Book Review

"One soars on the updrafts of his brilliance to a special kind of literary high." --The San Diego Union-Tribune

"Soft-spoken in his prose and terrifyingly accurate in his dialogue, Yates renders his characters with such authenticity that you hardly realize what he's done." --The Boston Globe

"Keenly insightful, brutally honest...delivering a swift kick to the heart." --The Denver Post

"Evoking entire worlds in a few words....[An] A." --Entertainment Weekly

About the Author

Richard Yates was 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, as well as the short story collections Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. He died in 1992.