Richard Yates
A Novel
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3.9 • 7 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In a startling change of direction, cult favorite Tao Lin presents a dark and brooding tale of illicit love that is his most sophisticated and mesmerizing writing yet
Richard Yates is named after real-life writer Richard Yates, but it has nothing to do with him. Instead, it tracks the rise and fall of an illicit affair between a very young writer and his even younger—in fact, under-aged—lover. As he seeks to balance work and love, she becomes more and more self-destructive in a play for his undivided attention. His guilt and anger builds in response until they find themselves hurtling out of control and afraid to let go.
Lin's trademark minimalism takes on a new, sharp-edged suspense here, zeroing in on a lacerating narrative like never before—until it is almost, in fact, too late.
“Richard Yates is neither pretentious nor sneering nor reflexively hip . . . simply a focused, moving, and rather upsetting portrait of two oddballs in love.” —The Boston Globe
“The most intelligent and hilarious book I've read all year . . . crushingly sad . . . at some points, beautiful.” —Vice
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This slick yet affecting novel depicts the manically self-absorbed days and nights of Dakota Fanning and Haley Joel Osment. That the two share names with famous child stars, and that the title references a celebrated novelist, indicates our specific moment in time, but otherwise this is not a book about either the actors or the author. Born in 1983, Lin (Shoplifting from American Apparel) portrays a generation unable to engage and left lost, lonely, and dangerously obsessive as a result. Gmail chat and text message appear in heavy rotation, as the young lovers become more and more incapable of anything beyond their melancholic fixation with each other. The prose is rhythmic and lean, but strangely captivating, ultimately serving to echo the lack of interest the characters seem to have in anything other than themselves. Following them proves disconcerting and exhausting, especially as nothing keeps happening. Lin s sensibility is hip and ironic, but also feels ominously clairvoyant. As the author himself has become something of an icon to the very generation he portrays, one gets the sense that the disaffected youth are in on something the rest of us can only read about; given how bleak that world appears, reading about it feels relentless enough.
