Just a perfect novel, wonderful portrait of two miserable lives of two miserable women. Yates understood post-WWII American suburban rot better than anyone else. Revolutionary Road is great, but The Easter Parade extends and refines all of the ideas of that debut novel at a much larger scale while also incorporating his exploration of loneliness from his 60s short stories. His two previous novels A Special Providence and Disturbing the Peace are two of his weaker, messier works but they both try to tap into a larger societal malaise beyond domestic drama. In my opinion The Easter Parade is where these ideas finally come together perfectly.
