Richard Yates debuted in 1961 with Revolutionary
Road. Critics would say that was his peak,
although his short stories in Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (1962) and his fourth novel, The Easter Parade (1976), both drew high praise—much
of it posthumously.
I first read The Collected Stories of Richard Yates (2004),
then The Easter Parade,
and then Revolutionary Road.
I loved it all and thought some of his short stories equaled Revolutionary Road. But I had been wanting more, so I started with
Disturbing the Peace, published in 1975.
Disturbing the Peace dramatizes a suburban middle-class man’s breakdown.
John Wilder works in advertising sales
for a magazine. He drinks a lot—too much—and early in the novel finds himself locked
in a psychiatric ward over the long Labor Day weekend—a traumatizing experience. He tries to resume life after his release while also regularly visiting a psychiatrist and attending AA meetings. But alcohol abuse soon resumes its
place in his life, and AA meetings become cover for frequent rendezvous with his
mistress and escapes from his wife and son. He continues drinking even while on
powerful prescription medication.
Critics did not care for the novel,
and I had my doubts in the first quarter of it or so, but I read on and was rewarded.
(I read the rest of Yates's works after this.)
My favorite excerpt from
Disturbing the Peace comes after Wilder has reestablished his life but starts
spending most evenings drinking and sleeping with his mistress across
town. After some months, Wilder’s neglected wife forces him to spend an evening
with her in a coffee shop, where she breaks the news that the school guidance counselor has singled out their son.
“He said—oh, John, he said Tommy’s
emotionally disturbed and he thinks we ought to have him see a psychiatrist.
Right away.”
Wilder had learned once, in some
elementary science course either at Grace Church or at Yale, that the reason
for a retractable scrotum in all male mammals is to protect the reproductory organs
in hazardous or distressful situations: sharp blades of jungle grass, say, will
brush against a running animal’s thighs, and the testicles will automatically
withdraw to the base of the trunk. He wasn’t sure if he had it right—did he
have anything right that he’d ever learned in school?—but the basic idea seemed
sound, and in any case it was happening to him now: his balls were rising,
right there in the coffee shop.
Note: I read a Delta trade paperback reissue I bought on Amazon. It had a couple of minor typos and flaws but was fine.
