My way of approaching literature is essentially and at its heart quietist. I don't read for entertainment, generally, even if I am entertained. I don't read for enlightenment, generally, even if I am often enlightened. Rather, I read because there must be some way out of this thing I'm in. And sometimes, if I'm lucky, it can be the hand on my shoulder, telling me that maybe, even if it's not going to be OK, I'm not alone in the struggle.
Enter Richard Yates, a man from another era who had the deep, deep misfortune to be a sensitive soul, and one who would be punished for his sensitivity. He would get the plaudits he deserved, only to be forgotten not long after. He would do his best to connect, and would act as his own worst enemy, devolving into mental illness and addiction every step of the way. Revolutionary Road -- a great book, although not his best, was his first, and it set the tempo for everything that was to follow, a line of inquiry as to how the most materially wealthy civilization the world had ever seen had failed to provide for the spiritual well-being of its people. You could call this the Crisis of Modernity. You wouldn't be wrong, but I think of it as something more specific to the United States as it was in the years of the postwar welfare-state consensus. It's the same question John Kenneth Galbraith tried to resolve with economics, but Yates tried to resolve it with literature.
And enter Emmy Grimes, the protagonist of The Easter Parade.
It starts with her, as a young girl, at the titular parade, with her father, and it's the last moment of light we see in her life. Her father is an old-school hack journalist, and he takes his daughters, Sarah and Emmy, to see the parade.
Sarah settles for mediocrity. She marries the shithead fail-Brit, and her life is one minor humiliation after another.
Emmy tries for the stars. She works writing job after writing job, she deals with awful relationship after awful relationship, including one impotent head case who is apparently based on Yates himself, and the scene where he cums on her leg after failing to perform is sad and pathetic and funny and heartbreaking all at the same time. God, she tries. And she always comes up short. And you know it won't end well for her.
My parents were both low-rung journalists. I am a low-rung journalist, still somehow publishing work and making a living in the evil maelstrom of 2026. I read this 10 years ago. It only hits harder as my stubble takes on a shade of gray.
And an image like this makes it all the worse:
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