Revolutionary Road

What are you supposed to do when you have everything you are told you should want and you find it isn't at all what you expected it would be?  How are you to keep from going insane with dissatisfaction? Where is the "terrific sense of life" you are desiring to feel more than anything?  Your youth and all its promises are fading, your attempts to live are fleeting, and you feel trapped in a life going no where.  

Frank and April Wheeler, though on the outside,  are the picture of 1950's perfection, are inwardly horribly flawed and flailing characters that struggle against each other and them selves in Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road.  They suffer under those questions every day.  Though they make great attempts to rise above their defeatist mindset, they find it so laborious and so taxing on their relationship to do so, that their efforts are unsustainable.  The inevitable return to reality results in such bitter disappointment that their life becomes unbearable.  Their days are so frustratingly confined in conformity that the story eventually turns tragic.  The Wheelers are a couple in crisis, surrounded by others in crisis, all trying to maintain the happy facade we all know was characteristic of the 1950's. 

Revolutionary Road is layered with thought provoking, disturbing and hauntingly precise descriptions and prose.  It is a book I would recommend but with a disclaimer.  It is not a "feel good" read, as you could probably tell, but it is a book that echoes sentiments that will forever remain questioned and challenged.  It is a book that causes one to take an evaluating look at their own life, their goals, hopes, desires and realities.  

I hope that you enjoy the road as much as I did.

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American Wife

American Wife, written by Curtis Sittenfeld, seemed a good choice for the start of this book review blog.  As we embark on a new era in politics, it is nice to look back, often with new eyes at what has come to pass.  I am not a politico,  and I was not particularly eager to read a book built on a political foundation, but I will forever be interested in reading about an interesting life.  That is precisely what Ms. Sittenfeld has exposed us to.  The position of the First Lady is not one that can be campaigned for.  It is one acquired by simply falling in love.  American Wife is above all else, a love story.

It is well known that the character of Alice Lindgren is based on our most recent first lady, Laura Bush.  The author creates a rare, intimate and often overly detailed look in to the life, heart and emotions of one of our nation's most notoriously private people.  Having no prior knowledge of Mrs. Bush or her life before acquiring that famous last name, I was absorbed in her personal journey and quite surprised, as she herself seems to be, by where that journey ends.    

The line the author draws between fact and fiction is like a layer of Saran; thin, see-through and almost imperceptible.  I am still unable to decipher what is really representative of Laura Bush's life, or what is simply the life of the character.  Ms. Sittenfeld has given the reader this unique gift, of allowing us to become involved in her life, her story, without really being able to judge it's truth or the politics that encircle it.

I did find myself skimming the last section of the book, and did not care for the back and forth of memory/personal history and current happenings.  I feel that I had already learned what I needed to about the characters to support my fondness of them during their most famous chapters.  The going back and forth was jarring and often confusing.  Other than that, I truly enjoyed the read and encourage you to give it a try.

Please let me know your personal thoughts.

Happy reading!