Frank and April Wheeler seemingly have it all: good looks, cute kids, a respectable job, a white picket fence house in Connecticut. Cracks are starting to emerge, though. Is this really the life they wanted? Whatever happened to their youthful dreams? A drastic plan emerges, but what exactly are they fleeing from? Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates is an enduring American classic dealing with marriage, expectations and dreams. As relevant today, as it was in 1961 and a very good read.

Frank’s job at Knox Business Machines is mind-numbingly dull. April’s stay-at-home-mum existence not much better. A budding actress in her youth, April decides to appear in an amateur play which turns out to be a crushing embarrassment. Her effort at branching out fails spectacularly and ignites a dream of escaping it all and moving to Paris.

April starts enthusiastic planning. Initially keen, Frank soon becomes a bit more cautious. Might it be that their problems are more fundamental than where they live? An unplanned pregnancy and an irresistible job offer throw a spanner it the works and set of a cascade of tragic events which lays bare the fundamental problems in their relationship.

Thrown into the mix is friend and local estate agent Mrs Givings who sees Frank and April as a healthy influence on her mentally unstable son John. But John sees through the mirage that is the American Dream and has no qualms about saying so.

Brewing underneath are Frank and April’s dysfunctional childhoods with physically and psychologically absent parents; the ghost of the Second World War and the expectations of post-war American society.

It’s as if everybody’d made this tacit agreement to live in a state of total self-deception. The hell with reality! Let’s have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let’s all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality…

It’s rare to read a novel which so convincingly enters the minds of its protagonists. The psychological battles, the power play, the pretence, intentional and unintentional hurt are subtly laid out in actions, dialogue or internal thoughts. Revolutionary Road is a classic that truly deserves to be read.

If you liked Richard Yates’ The Easter Parade, you’ll love this.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates is published by Vintage Classics, 352 pages.