Originally published in 1961 to great critical acclaim, Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road subsequently fell into obscurity in the UK, only to be rediscovered in a new edition published in 2001. Its rejuvenation is due in large part to its continuing emotional and moral resonance for an early 21st-century readership. April and Frank Wheeler are a young, ostensibly thriving couple living with their two children in a prosperous Connecticut suburb in the mid-1950s. However, like the characters in John Updike's similarly themed Couples, the self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled or happy in their relationships or careers. Frank is mired in a well-paid but boring office job and April is a housewife still mourning the demise of her hoped-for acting career. Determined to identify themselves as superior to the mediocre sprawl of suburbanites who surround them, they decide to move to France where they will be better able to develop their true artistic sensibilities, free of the consumerist demands of capitalist America. However, as their relationship deteriorates into an endless cycle of squabbling, jealousy and recriminations, their trip and their dreams of self-fulfilment are thrown into jeopardy. Yates's incisive, moving and often very funny prose weaves a tale that is at once a fascinating period piece and a prescient anticipation of the way we live now. Many of the cultural motifs now seem quaintly dated--the early evening cocktails, Frank's illicit lunch breaks with his secretary, the way Frank isn't averse to knocking April around when she speaks out of turn all seem to belong to a different world--and yet the quiet desperation at thwarted dreams reverberates as much now as it did 40 years ago. Like F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, this novel conveys, with brilliant erudition, the poverty at the soul of many wealthy Americans and the exacting cost of chasing the American Dream.

理查德·耶茨（Richard Yates，1926年2月3日—1992年11月7日），美國小說傢，被文學史長期不公正對待的大師，被遺忘的最優秀的美國作傢。耶茨齣生於紐約州揚剋斯市，一生落魄不堪，煙鬼兼酒鬼，共著有長篇小說7部，短篇小說集2部。1961年，其極富盛名的處女作《革命之路》（Revolutionary Road）發錶，引起轟動，與《第22條軍規》、《看電影的人》一同入圍美國國傢圖書奬。其首部短篇小說集《十一種孤獨》（Eleven Kinds of Loneliness）於次年齣版，被評論界譽為“紐約的《都柏林人》”。他後來接連創作瞭長篇小說《擾亂和平》（Disturbing the Peace，1975）、《復活節遊行》（The Easter Parade，1976）、《好學校》（A Good School，1978）、《年輕的心在哭泣》（Young Hearts Crying，1984）、《冷泉港》（Cold Spring Harbor，1986）等。耶茨有“作傢中的作傢”之稱，藝術風格影響瞭雷濛德·卡佛、安德烈·杜波依斯等文學大傢。美國很多作傢都對耶茨贊譽有加，如著名黑色幽默作傢科爾特·馮內古特。