The Collected Stories of Richard Yates

Front Cover
Macmillan, May 3, 2002 - Fiction - 472 pages

A literary event of the highest order, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates brings together Yates's peerless short fiction in a single volume for the first time.

Richard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate, and technically accomplished writers of America's postwar generation, and his work has inspired such diverse talents as Richard Ford, Ann Beattie, André Dubus, Robert Stone, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. This collection, as powerful as Yate's beloved Revolutionary Road, contains the stories of his classic works Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (a book The New York Times Book Review hailed as "the New York equivalent of Dubliners") and Liars in Love; it also features nine new stories, seven of which have never been published.

Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers, the grim humor that attends life on a tuberculosis ward, or the moments of terrified peace experienced by American soldiers in World War II, Yates examines every frayed corner of the American dream. His stories, as empathetic as they are unforgiving, are like no others in our nation's literature. Published with a moving introduction by the novelist Richard Russo, this collection will stand as its author's final masterpiece.

 

Contents

Doctor JackoLantern 3
18
Jody Rolled the Bones
32
No Pain Whatsoever
47
A Wrestler with Sharks
72
Fun with a Stranger
85
A Really Good Jazz Piano
107
Out with the Old
125
Builders
141
Liars in Love
240
A Compassionate Leave
273
Regards at Home
296
Saying Goodbye to Sally
321
The Canal
367
A Clinical Romance
380
Bells in the Morning
399
Thieves
417

Oh Joseph Im So Tired
177
A Natural Girl
200
Trying Out for the Race
219
The Comptroller and the Wild Wind
435
A Last Fling Like
453
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About the author (2002)

Richard Yates was the author of the novels Revolutionary Road, A Special Providence, Disturbing the Peace, The Easter Parade, A Good School, Young Hearts Crying, and Cold Spring Harbor, as well as the short story collections Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. He died in 1992. Richard Russo was born in Johnstown, New York on July 15, 1949. He received a Bachelor's degree, a Master of Fine Arts degree, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Arizona. He taught at numerous colleges including Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Colby College. He has written numerous books including Mokawk, The Risk Pool, Straight Man, Bridge of Sighs, and That Old Cape Magic, as well as a short story collection, The Whore's Child. His novel Empire Falls won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Nobody's Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. His memoir was entitled Elsewhere. He also co-wrote the 1998 film Twilight with director Robert Benton and the teleplay for the HBO adaptation of Empire Falls.

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