The Geography of Identity in The Easter Parade

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Abstract

This chapter provides a new reading of Richard Yates’s heavily autobiographical 1976 novel, The Easter Parade. By delineating the importance of place within the novel – an area that has provoked a good deal of discourse with respect to his first book, Revolutionary Road (1961), but which has not been explored in The Easter Parade – I demonstrate that Yates’s topographical specificity contributes to the narrative beyond the realism for which he is famous. In particular, I argue that the network of real and imaginary places depicted within the novel actively shapes and fosters the existential loneliness of Yates’s characters, which is closely connected to the experience of place. My overall aim is to particularize David Castronovo and Steven Goldleaf’s observation that in his “notation of the suburbs, Manhattan, and the Midwest, Yates produces his most comprehensive account of American unhappiness” (124).
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRichard Yates and the Flawed American Dream
Subtitle of host publicationCritical Essays
EditorsJennifer Daly
PublisherMcFarland
ISBN (Print) 978-1476668253
Publication statusPublished - 18 Oct 2017

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