A Tragic Honesty

"Yates's life was a tragicomic disaster. The favorite child of an unstable, impecunious mother, Yates described his youth as a "hysterical odyssey" through Depression-era America and beyond, from Westchester to Paris to Greenwich Village and back again, hounded by creditors every step of the way. Such an ordeal was the goad that made Yates determined to reveal the truth, no matter how bleak, that people like his mother tend to bury beneath layers of every delusion. "The most important thing," he liked to say, "is not to tell or live a lie."" "What emerges from these pages is a man of fascinating contradictions. A "gentlemen of the old school" who was rarely seen in public without a Brooks Brothers suit and foulard tie, Yates could be a man of consummate integrity and charm. But his better self was constantly sabotaged by alcohol and mental illness, and even at the best of times - a prestigious stint in Hollywood, say, or as Robert Kennedy's speechwriter - some fresh calamity was always in the offing." "A Tragic Honesty is an evocation of a man who in many ways embodied the struggles of the Great American Writer in the latter half of the twentieth century. The story of Richard Yates here stands as a singular reminder of what the writer must sacrifice for his craft, the devil's bargain of artistry for happiness, praise for sanity."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.