A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates Paperback – Illustrated, May 1, 2004

Blake Bailey does it again! He deftly, with honesty and compassion, offers up a brilliant and entertainingtour de force biography of Richard Yates. As with his previous biography of John Cheever, one can see how deeply embedded in each author is not only superb talent, but the ever-haunting feelings of inadequacy felt by each at not having the badge of an academic degree. Both Yates and Cheever had something of an American pedigree by birth, but each man had the curse of alcoholism, envy of other writers and damaged family members whose living"ghosts" haunted them in their writing and personal relationships.Before I read this biography, I had only seen the filmed version of Revolutionary Road some years prior. It was haunting, to be sure, but I didn't consider reading the Yates book itself. It was only on the strength of Bailey's Cheever biography that I began to read Richard Yates's book of short stories LIARS IN LOVE. I've since devoured nearly all of his oeuvre - painful as his characters' self-deceptions often are - they're mostly magnetic and truly rendered. This is a harrowing biography to read - Yates' nearly total descent into bitter vitriol at colleagues who abandon or neglect him and his books, friends , utter- consuming alcoholism and recurring bouts of mental illness is hard to take in for the reader. Yet this Bailey interpretation is mesmerizing. My hope is that there will be a resurgence of interest in the mid-century writing and milieu of Richard Yates's books.

This is a brilliant bio about a brilliant writer; a writer I nearly missed (didn't know of the first 51+ years of life). I read Revolutionary Road because of the movie (which I still haven't seen). The book floored me in ways I haven't been floored since Updike's Rabbit novels. I reread the novel while waiting for two more Yates novels I had ordered (Cold Spring Harbor and Easter Parade). When I finished all three (RR twice), I was convinced I'd just read the best set of American novels ever. I'm still convinced.I ordered the bio and just finished it. It's an amazing account of an author and what must have driven his passion to write. As it turned out, my writing mentor attended (and was one of Yates' students) at the Iowa workshop when Yates taught there. In fact, Yates signed his thesis. How so many of those authors (teachers and students) turned out to be favorites of mine is amazing (Vonnegut, Dubus, Milch, etc.). And it was good to see how Milch more than redeemed himself for Yates in the end.Even the title of the bio is perfect: A Tragic Honesty. Blake Bailey does a magnificent job of presenting Richard Yates in all his raw pain, poetry and hardships (self-inflicted and perceived). This is a wonderful read, amici ... and READ you all must.Finding Yates so late in life is a blessing ... and a final shove for myself to pursue something other than crime fiction writing (which was where I had started long ago as a playwright).I'll tell you what, Richard Yates has catapulted to the top of my favorite authors list ... and I haven't recieved from amazon the remainder of his works ... which I can't wait to read.READ Richard Yates, amici ... then READ his amazing personal story in this brilliant biography of one of America's true masters of fiction.

As a fan of Richard Yates' "Revolutionary Road" and his short stories, I came to "A Tragic Honesty" with a medium-sized level of curiosity about the writer himself. However, Blake Bailey's research is so deep, his writing so informed and elegant, and his structure so straightforward and comprehensible, I found I could not put this book down. This is not an easy read in the sense that Yates was a deeply tortured alcoholic who suffered staggering mental illness, but it is certainly one of the most vivid portraits of a person driven to create. There are also some surprising turns in this book: Yates - whom I knew wrote from Bobby Kennedy as A.G. - actually wrote many of Kennedy's civil rights speeches, which are today considered among the best speech of that era. Outside of Cheever, few writers of this era could write as beautiful of a sentence. Bailey's carefully researched and gorgeously written biography is a testament to the respect he commands among other fine writers.

Richard Yates is stranger than fiction, which makes for fascinating reading. The amount of misery he himself endured, and the pain he inflicted on those around him are incomprehensible. Richard Yates's mental and physical comebacks are the amazing part of his life story. And the remarkable disconnects--his books are about self-deception, but their insights seemed to have eluded him in life.

As a fan of Revolutionary Road, book and movie, I had no problem falling into his life story. Even at a 600 pages read, I was engrossed , finished the book in a week.

Excellent shape. Thank you.

I loved this book- it was fantastic and sad, about the life of fiction writer Richard Yates. It made me want to read most of his books and then also read the writers who most impacted his own career. A fascinating read and very worthwhile!

One always approaches a biography of a figure held in high esteem with some trepidation especially when he or she is a great writer as it is hard to avoid thinking that the author will fail to have the scope, perception, or eloquence to do his subject justice. This was certainly a concern before starting Blake Bailey's opus but by the end of the 600 plus pages, all such misgivings had been dispelled. In short, this is a magnificent achievement: extensively researched (featuring interviews conducted with nearly all the major players in Yates life), carefully structured, and fluently written, but above all a work where the life of its protagonist is allowed to unfold in all its tortured glory. The result is a page turner: the novels and short stories the writer produced emerge convincingly as the very stuff of life itself, filtered through the pen of a self taught literary perfectionist. Those readers who have marvelled at the authenticity of the dialogue and empathy with disappointed hopes to be found in Revolutionary Road or The Easter Parade will find that so often what they have read is a carefully wrought chapter from Yates own path through prep school, marriage, alcoholism, fatherhood, mental breakdown and literary struggle. The narrative retains clarity and focus throughout, Bailey furnishing the reader with detailed material and observations on nearly all the key events of Yates' life. He also discusses the work itself with insight, but never turns the book into an exercise in personal literary criticism. There is the very occasional disappointment: Yates short lived but significant career as a speechwriter for Robert Kennedy on Civil Rights is not afforded enough attention, and little is said about his critical reception outside of the United States, but these are minor gripes in the context of the whole.In the final analysis, Yates the man holds as much fascination as his writing-Bailey acts as neither advocate or judge on his subject: his drinking, insecurities and emotional neediness are objectively chronicled as are their damaging consequences for all who knew and loved him. The only stability in a chaotic life was an overwhelming need to write and to make that writing constantly more honest and true to itself. He eschewed the vagaries of fashion frequently at the expense of his critical standing and financial solvency, remaining defiant in the belief that the virtues of craftsmanship, emotional honesty and skilful use of language would win through: all too often like his characters he ended up disillusioned. Some of the images live in the memory not least Yates living in squalor through his later years, short of money, ill and alone hoping that his obituary in The New York Times might extend beyond two lines. It did, just, but the neglect he feared and had already endured did fall like a curtain in the years following his death in 1992. Salvation in life and death came in the form of respect from fellow writers and their persistent championing has yielded modern editions over the last half dozen years which have afforded new readers the opportunity to discover some of the best writing of recent decades. Bailey hints at the reasons for Yates neglect throughout the book: he writes about the things we do not what we should have done, our need for love not the successful pursuit of it, and what we are not what we would like ourselves to be. This is a brilliant portrayal of a man who succeeded in facing the realities we prefer to avoid on the page if not always in life. A mandatory purchase for anyone remotely interested in Yates, good writing or fine biography.

A really detailed and brilliant book about a very underrated writer. I loved it - but only for die hard Yates fans as it's very very long!

Brilliant stuff; providing clear insights into the work of this major novelist.

Great book, and more than just a biography.

He was gorgeous, talented - and an alcoholic who basically wrote everything he experienced into his books and made it all very depressing. He wanted to get into the New Yorker but took a very long time before he discovered it was because although he was a lovely writer he was also incredibly depressing and the NY isn't into that. Irony not bleeding wounds.I am a big admirer of Revolutionary Road but less so since discovering how much of it was actually just fact. Also Easter parade - stunning ending but that also turns out to be basically his life and times.