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），美国小说家，被文学史长期不公正对待的大师，被遗忘的最优秀的美国作家。耶茨出生于纽约州扬克斯市，一生落魄不堪，烟鬼兼酒鬼，共著有长篇小说7部，短篇小说集2部。1961年，其极富盛名的处女作《革命之路》（Revolutionary Road）发表，引起轰动，与《第22条军规》、《看电影的人》一同入围美国国家图书奖。其首部短篇小说集《十一种孤独》（Eleven Kinds of Loneliness）于次年出版，被评论界誉为“纽约的《都柏林人》”。他后来接连创作了长篇小说《扰乱和平》（Disturbing the Peace，1975）、《复活节游行》（The Easter Parade，1976）、《好学校》（A Good School，1978）、《年轻的心在哭泣》（Young Hearts Crying，1984）、《冷泉港》（Cold Spring Harbor，1986）等。耶茨有“作家中的作家”之称，艺术风格影响了雷蒙德·卡佛、安德烈·杜波依斯等文学大家。美国很多作家都对耶茨赞誉有加，如著名黑色幽默作家科尔特·冯内古特。