理查德耶茨简介

迈克尔Shinagel


Harvard Review , Fall 2003, Issue 25; pg. 哈佛评论“，2003年秋季，第25期; PG。 50. 50。





At the time of his death in 1992, Richard Yates was remembered only vaguely for his first novel, Revolutionary Road , which in 1961 placed second to Walker Percy's The Moviegoer for the National Book Award. 在他的死亡时间在1992年，理查德耶茨只依稀记住他的第一本小说， 革命道路 ，在1961年位居第二的沃克珀西的国家图书奖的电影观众。 Despite a literary output of seven novels, including The Easter Parade (1976) and A Good School (1978), and two collections of short stories, notably Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (1962) and Liars in Love (1981), Yates was a forlorn and forgotten figure at the end of his life, with his books out of print. 尽管七本小说，包括复活节游行 （1976年）和良好的学校 （1978），短篇小说，尤其是11种孤独 （1962年）和恋爱中的说谎者 （1981）和两个集合的文学输出，耶茨是一个被遗弃在他生命的终结和被遗忘的数字，与他的书打印出来。



Nearly a decade later a Yates revival was initiated by the publication of The Collected Stories of Richard Yates , which became a national bestseller and prompted new editions of his better novels. The Collected Stories includes everything in his short story collections as well as nine uncollected stories. 近十年后，一个耶茨复兴发起出版的理查德耶茨，从而成为一个国家的畅销书，并促使他更好的小说的新版本收集的故事 ，所收集的故事包括一切都在他的短篇小说集，以及9个未收回的故事。 An admiring introduction by Richard Russo provides a useful context for appreciating Yates's short fiction, particularly his indebtedness to Fitzgerald and his place in the history of the short story from Chekhov to Raymond Carver. 由理查德日俄慕名而来的引进提供了一个赞赏耶茨的短篇小说，尤其是他的债务，以菲茨杰拉德和他在雷蒙德卡弗从契诃夫短篇小说的历史背景下。 Although never a commercial success, Yates was a meticulous craftsman who was widely regarded as a "writer's writer" by his contemporaries. 虽然从来没有一个商业上的成功，耶茨是一个细致的工匠，他的同时代人，被广泛视为“作家的作家 “。



Yates drew unsparingly on his life for material, and readers of his short stories and novels will experience a special pleasure in reading Blake Bailey's timely and illuminating biography, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates . 耶茨在他的生活提请unsparingly材料，和他的短篇小说和小说的读者会经历一个在读布雷克贝利的及时和启发性的传记，一个悲剧性的诚实感到特别高兴：理查德耶茨的生活和工作。 Bailey draws judiciously and insightfully from interviews, letters, short stories, and novels, both to depict a detailed chronology of Yates's life and to demonstrate dramatically how his life experiences were creatively transformed in his fiction. 贝利提请明智和深刻地采访，信件，短篇小说和小说，既描绘出一个详细的年表和耶茨的生活表现出显着他的人生经历如何创造性地在他的小说转化 。



Born in 1926 in Yonkers, New York, Yates was only two when his parents divorced. 出生于1926年，纽约扬克斯，耶茨只有两个他的父母离异 。 He and his older sister were raised by a neurotic and alcoholic mother with pretensions as a sculptor. 他和他的姐姐提出神经质和酒精的母亲，作为一个雕塑家的伪装。 He attended prep school as a poor scholarship student and never went to college, but served in the infantry in Europe towards the end of World War II. 他作为一个贫穷的奖学金出席预备学校，没上过大学，但在欧洲担任步兵对二战结束。 After the war he worked at odd jobs, including a stint as a rewrite man for United Press, and in 1947 enrolled in evening creative writing courses at Columbia. 战争结束后，他曾在打零工，包括作为美国新闻改写男子进站，并在1947年参加日晚在哥伦比亚大学的创意写作课程。 In 1948 he entered into a troubled marriage with another loner, Sheila Bryant, producing two daughters, Sharon and Monica. 1948年他进入一个陷入困境的婚姻与另一独来独往，希拉科比，生产的两个女儿，沙龙和莫妮卡。 He had weak lungs and in 1950 contracted tuberculosis, necessitating a long convalescence in a VA sanatorium, where he read extensively in English and American literature, especially his favorite F. Scott Fitzgerald. 他虚弱的肺部，并在1950年得了肺结核，需要长期疗养在弗吉尼亚州的疗养院，在那里他广泛阅读英语和美国文学，尤其是他最喜爱的的菲茨杰拉德。 From 1951 to 1953 he and his family moved to France so he could become a writer. 从1951年到1953年，他和他的家人搬到法国，所以他能成为一名作家。 he wrote and sold some short stories, but upon returning to the US took a job writing promotional material for Remington Rand to support his family. 他写道，卖了一些短篇小说，但回到美国后，参加了工作，编写雷明顿兰德公司的宣传材料，以支持他的家人。



Yates had a singularly unhappy life that was exacerbated by his charming yet destructive personality: he was an alcoholic who suffered from a bipolar disorder and smoked four packs a day. 耶茨了奇异的不愉快的生活，加剧了他迷人尚未破坏性的个性：他是个酒鬼遭受从躁郁症和烟熏每天 4包。 He and his wife were divorced in 1961, the year that he had a major nervous breakdown, but also the year that he finally won national recognition for his first novel, Revolutionary Road . 他和妻子于1961年离婚，当年，他产生了重大的神经衰弱，但今年，他终于赢得了国家的认可，为他的第一本小说，革命之路。 It was nominated for a National Book Award and received lavish praise from fellow writers, notably William Styron, who read the galleys and pronounced it "a deft, ironic, beautiful novel that deserves to be a classic," and Tennessee Williams who was prompted to write: "If more is needed to make a masterpiece in modern American fiction, I am sure I don't know what it is." 这是一个国家图书奖提名，并收到来自同胞作家，尤其是威廉Styron，谁读的厨房和突出“一个轻巧，具有讽刺意味的，美观新颖，不愧为一个经典，”田纳西威廉姆斯提示吹捧写道：“如果有更多的需要，使现代美国小说中的杰作，我相信，我不知道它是什么 。“



Yates taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop from 1964 to 1971, and in 1968 married his second wife, the twenty-two-year-old Martha Speer, with whom he had another daughter. 耶茨从1964年至1971年任教于爱荷华作家工作坊，并于1968年结婚的第二任妻子，二十二个岁的玛莎施佩尔，他有另一个女儿。 He and his wife and child returned to New York in 1974, but because of his heavy drinking and mental instability his second marriage ended in 1976. 他和他的妻子和孩子回到纽约，于1974年，但他的第二次婚姻，因为他酗酒，精神状态不稳定，在1976年结束。 Yates then moved to Boston, where he lived from 1976 to 1988, teaching at Boston University, Emerson College, and Harvard Extension School. 耶茨然后搬到波士顿，他住的地方从1976年到1988年，在波士顿大学爱默生学院的教学，和哈佛大学扩展学院 。 It proved to be a productive period for him as a writer: A Good School (1978), Liars in Love (1981), Young Hearts Crying (1984), and Cold Spring Harbor (1986). 它被证明是对他旺盛的时期，作为一个作家：一个好学校（1978），恋爱中的说谎者（1981），年轻的心哭泣（1984）， 以及冷泉港（1986） 。 He later moved to Hollywood for a failed try at screenwriting, and died in a VA hospital in 1992, while serving as a visiting writer at the University of Alabama. 后来，他搬到了好莱坞，在编剧的失败尝试，并在VA医院于1992年去世，而作为一个在阿拉巴马大学访问作家。



Yates's life informed his novels and short stories about the military, the corporate world, VA hospitals, suburban marriages, and the flawed American dream. 耶茨的生活告诉他对军事的小说和短篇小说，企业界，弗吉尼亚州医院，郊区婚姻，和有缺陷的美国梦。 There is a Chekhovian mood of sadness and fatalism in his stories that resonates with the reader because it is so powerfully presented and because Yates experienced it himself. 在他的故事是一个悲伤和宿命论Chekhovian读者的共鸣，因为它是如此有力地提出和耶茨，因为自己经历过的情绪。 He deserves to be read again and again because he is the literary laureate of the loners and losers of middle-class America at mid-century and after. 他值得一读一次又一次，因为他是在本世纪中叶后的孤独者和失败者的中产阶级美国的文学奖得主 。

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饮酒与迪克耶茨




by Martin Naparsteck 马丁Naparsteck

The North American Review , May-August 2001, p75 北美审查 ，2001年5月， P75







I ANSWERED THE PHONE after the fifth or sixth ring. 我回答后，第五或第六环的电话。 I was sitting close enough to answer it after the first ring, but I thought, with the illogic common to late nights, that maybe if I didn't pick up the damn thing no one would be there. 我坐在足够接近回答后的第一环，但我认为，不合逻辑的共同深夜，也许如果我不拿起该死的东西没有人会在那里。 My wife looked at me. 我的妻子看着我。 It was my job to answer the telephone, not hers, and anyway watching the Bonanza rerun was more her pleasure than mine. 这是我的工作，接听电话，不是她的，反正看富矿重新运行是她比我的乐趣。 A slurred voice on the other end said something I couldn't make out. 在另一端的一个含糊不清的声音说了些什么，我看不出来。 At first I thought it was someone playing a joke. 起初我还以为是有人打一个笑话。 Who calls after 10 pm anyway other than a joker? 世卫组织呼吁停止晚上10点以后，反正比一个小丑其他 ？ "I didn't hear you," I said, meaning, I didn't hear you clearly. 我说：“我没有听到你，”，意思是，我没有听到你清楚 。 The voice repeated what it had said; I could recognize just enough to realize I was being told a name, but I couldn't understand it. 声音反复说，我可以承认，就足以实现我被告知，一个名字，但我不明白它 。 I did understand by then that the caller was drunk. 我明白然后，打电话的是醉。 That, I guessed, helped explain why he was calling so late. 我猜，这有助于解释为什么他叫这么晚。 "Who is this?" “这是谁？” I asked with less annoyance than I intended. 我问比我预期的少烦恼 。 There was a pause of three or four seconds, then a gurgling sound, or maybe a sound of a throat being cleared. 有三到四秒的停顿，然后潺潺的声音，或可能被清除喉咙的声音。 A sound a drunk would make when he realizes the listener can't understand him. 一个声音，一醉，当他意识到听者无法理解他 。





"This is Dick Yates." “这是迪克耶茨。”





"Who?" “谁？” I asked before I realized I now understood who was calling. 我问，我才意识到我现在知道谁在呼唤 。 I had written to Richard Yates four or five weeks earlier. 我曾写信给理查德耶茨四，五个星期前。 Actually, I'd written to his publisher, Seymour Lawrence, asking that my letter be forwarded to Yates. 其实，我写信给他的出版商，西摩劳伦斯，问我的信被转发到耶茨。





"Richard Yates," he said. “理查德耶茨，”他说。 His tone seemed designed to clarify his first name, as if to explain to himself that that must be the reason I didn't understand him. 他的语气似乎旨在澄清他的名字，仿佛自己解释，必须我不明白他的原因。





He repeated his name and said he had received my letter. 他重复了他的名字，说他收到我的信 。 "Why the fuck they took so long to send it to me, I don't know." “为什么他妈的，他们花了这么长时间，将它发送给我，我不知道 。“ Another throat clearing. 另一个清嗓。 "Well, you want to interview me, that's OK with me. Do it by telephone or come up here." “好，你要来采访我，我确定，它通过电话或来这里。” I wanted to come up there, but I didn't know where up there was. 我希望来这里，但我不知道那里。 I knew only the address of his publisher. 我只知道他的出版商的地址 。 "Up here, up here, Boston, up here." 他说：“在这里，在这里，波士顿，在这里。“





Dick Yates and I would become friends, or perhaps more accurately, he would become my mentor and he would never learn, once he had been drinking, to hide his annoyance with me. 耶茨迪克和我成为朋友，或许更精确地，他会成为我的良师益友，他将永远也学不会，有一次他曾喝酒，跟我来隐藏他的烦恼。





AUTUMN, 1984, his eighth book, the novel Young Hearts Crying , has just been published, and we meet in The Crossroads, a bar on Beacon Street in Boston's Back Bay. ，1984年秋季，他的第八册， 小说哭泣的幼小的心灵，刚刚出版，和大家见面的十字路口，灯塔街就在波士顿的Back Bay酒吧。 A character in the novel says, "We spent our whole lives yearning; isn't that the God damnedest thing?" 一个字符在小说中说，“我们花了我们的整个生活的向往;是不是神damnedest的事情吗 ？“





I'm late for the meeting by two hours because the directions Yates gave me are wrong and I end up downtown and have a hard time finding my way back, but when I arrive he's not upset, but I can smell the liquor and I can see it in his face. 我迟到两小时的会议，因为方向耶茨给了我是错的，我最终市中心很难找到我的方式，但是当我到达他的不难过，但我可以闻到酒，我可以在他的脸上看到。 It's a face that would be handsome if it didn't contain the evidence, lines and sagging skin and tiredness, of decades of drinking. 这是一个，如果它不包含的证据，线条和皮肤松弛和疲倦，几十年的饮用水，将帅气的脸。 He's tall and slender and he reminds me of drunks who roam up and down East Avenue in Rochester, New York, asking, sometimes demanding, money from anyone dressed in a suit. 他的身高和修长，他提醒我醉鬼谁漫游向上和向下，纽约州罗彻斯特市东大街，问，有时要求，从穿西装的人钱。 Right after I sit down the waitress brings him a glass of water and a shot glass filled, I learn later, with Jim Beam, and a bottle of Rolling Rock. 右后我坐下来的女服务员把他一杯水和玻璃填充了一枪，我学习后，吉姆梁，一瓶滚石。 He tips the Jim Beam into the water glass, sticks his forefinger in, and stirs. 他提示吉姆梁成一杯水，坚持他的食指，并搅拌 。





Because I'm so late the interview doesn't start until the next day, and late the next night, after he has had--I've lost exact count--at least eight or nine Jim Beams and waters and two or three Rolling Rocks, I ask him about the time he spent in Hollywood. 因为我这么晚不采访，直到第二天开始，和后期的第二天晚上，此前他已-我失去了精确计数-至少有八，九吉姆梁和水域两个或三个滚动的岩石，我问他的时候，他在好莱坞的花 。 I delayed the subject because I knew it was not a happy time. 我延迟的问题，因为我知道这是不是一个快乐的时间。 He avoids several of my questions, but when I'm insistent that he tell me something, he leans forward and says, jabbing his forefinger into the table with each word, "I don't want to talk about that fucking time in fucking Hollywood writing for the fucking movies." 他避免了我的几个问题，但是当我坚持说，他告诉我的东西，他向前倾，并说，每个字表猛刺他的食指，“我不想谈他妈的好莱坞，他妈的时间约他妈的电影“写作。





I would make four trips to meet with Yates in The Crossroads over the next two years and we would talk on the telephone a dozen times, and three aspects of his personality repeated themselves to me over and over. 我要四趟，以满足在十字路口与耶茨在未来两年，我们会在电话上谈了十几次，和他的个性三个方面重复自己我一遍又一遍。 He drank and drank and drank. 他喝，喝，喝。 When he drank he used the work fucking over and over. 当他喝了，他用工作他妈的一遍又一遍 。 Early in a day, before he began his drinking, he was polite and thoughtful and helpful. 早在一天前，他开始了他的饮用水，他礼貌周到，乐于助人。





THE CROSSROADS was within walking distance of Fenway Park, where he had never been, and of Boston University, where he sometimes taught. 十字路口是在步行距离Fenway公园，在那里，他从未和波士顿大学，在那里他有时教之内。 For a while he lived in an apartment on Beacon about a block east of The Crossroads, and for a while he lived in a place on Commonwealth, three and a half blocks south, and for a while he lived in a two-room place just above the bar. 有一段时间他住在一个约的十字路口地块东至灯塔公寓，一段时间，他住在一个地方，三个联合体，南半块，一个，而他住在两个房间的地方以上的酒吧。 All the time he did almost all of his drinking in The Crossroads or in the apartments. 所有的时间，他却在十字路口或在公寓几乎所有他的饮用水 。 The Crossroads had a long narrow room with a bar and another long narrow room with booths. 十字路口有一个狭长的房间酒吧和另一个长狭窄的房间展位。 He always sat at a booth. 他总是坐在一个摊位。 The place served large portions of high fat food. 地方服务的高脂肪食物的大部分 。 He particularly liked the Fisherman's Platter with its fried clams, fried onion rings, fried several other things. 炒蚬，炸洋葱圈，炒几个其他的东西，他特别喜欢渔夫的盘片。 The waitresses were friendly, called him Dick, knew he was a writer, but didn't read his books. 女服务员友好的，叫他迪克，知道他是一个作家，但没有看过他的书 。





On one trip to Boston, my wife and our year-and-a-half-old daughter came along, and Yates invited us up to his Beacon Street apartment. 在一次旅行到波士顿，我的妻子和岁一年半的女儿走过来，和耶茨邀请我们到他的灯塔街的公寓。 I bent over to pick up the stroller my daughter was in, but he insisted on taking the front end. 我弯腰捡起我的女儿是在童车，但他坚持到前端。 His place was on the second floor, and between the outside steps, maybe eight or ten of them, and the inside flight, he was puffing heavily by the time we reached his door. 他的位置是在二楼，和外面的步骤之间，也许八，其中10个，内飞行，他喷着严重的时候，我们到达了他的门。 He smoked about as heavily as he drank. 他熏大约为重，他喝了 。





Once my wife and I insisted he join us for dinner at a restaurant my wife wanted to visit on Bunker Hill. 当我和妻子坚持他共进晚餐我的妻子想访问“邦克山”我们在一家餐馆。 He pulled out the chair for Ruth to sit in, talked to my daughter, America, told her how pretty she was, told us he thought George Washington really had eaten in this place, asked me if we planned to see the Red Sox before we left town. 他掏出为露丝坐在椅子上，交谈，我的女儿，美国，告诉她，她是多么漂亮，告诉我们他认为乔治华盛顿真的在这个地方吃，问我，如果我们的计划之前，我们看到红袜左镇。 He had green spaghetti and one glass of red wine, and later Ruth told me how charming she thought he was. 他绿色的面条和一杯红酒，后来露丝告诉我，她以为他是多么迷人。 I agreed. 我同意了。





Once, in his apartment above The Crossroads he filled a 10-ounce glass to the brim with Jim Beam and handed it to me. 有一次，在他的公寓十字路口以上，他填补了10盎司的玻璃与吉姆梁满满当当，并把它交给我。 He filled another for himself. 他填补自己另一个。 He finished his in about ten minutes, and I had taken only two sips from mine. 他完成了他在大约10分钟，我只有两个矿采取了几口。 He got up and filled his glass again, asked me if I wanted more, and when I said no, he sat down. 他站起来，又充满了他的玻璃，问我，如果我想要更多的，当我说没有，他坐了下来。 By the time he was filling his glass the third time, he snapped at me. 他被灌他的玻璃第三次的时候，他呵斥我 。 "What's wrong with your drink? Want some fucking ice?" “你喝什么错？想一些他妈的冰吗？ “ A half hour later he went into the bathroom, kept the door open, I heard his piss hit the bowl's water, and I got up and walked to the kitchen sink, poured all but about an ounce of my whiskey into the sink, and sat down. 一个半小时后，他去到浴室，保持敞开了大门，听到他的小便打在碗里的水，我得到了最多和厨房水槽走去，浇入水槽所有，但对一盎司我的威士忌，并坐在下来。





When he came out of the bathroom, zipping himself up as he did, I took a sip from my glass. 当他走出浴室，压缩自己，像他那样，我从我的杯子，呷了一口 。 The idea was to make it easy for him to think I had been drinking. 当时的想法是很容易让他觉得我一直喝。 Drunks feel insulted if you don't drink with them, as if your abstinence is a slap in the face. 醉鬼觉得侮辱，如果你不与他们喝，如果您的禁欲是一个耳光 。 He looked at me, squinted, said, "You need more," walked to the kitchen counter, picked up the bottle of Jim Beam, walked over to me, poured whiskey into my glass, and when the bottle was drained empty before my glass was half full I felt relief, but he just walked back to the kitchen, reached above the sink, opened a cabinet, took out another bottle of Jim Beam, took off the cap, walked back to me, filled my glass, overfilled it so some spilled on my trousers, and he then walked to the table that held his two-thirds full glass, filled it to the top, over-filled it so some spilled on the table, put the cap on the bottle, walked to the kitchen, put the bottle on the counter. 他看着我，眯起眼睛，说：“您需要，”走到厨房柜台，拿起一瓶吉姆梁，我走了过来，我的玻璃倒入威士忌，而当瓶子被耗尽之前，我的玻璃空半满我觉得救济，但他只是走回厨房，水槽上方达成，开了一个柜，拿出另一瓶吉姆梁，脱下帽，走回我，充满了我的的玻璃，装得过满，以便洒在我的裤子，然后，他走到表，举行他三分之二的全玻璃，填补顶部，过充，使一些洒在桌子上，放在瓶帽，走到厨房，放在柜台上的一瓶。 He picked up the empty bottle, stepped over to the trash can in front of the sink, put his foot out to step on the lever that would make the top pop up, missed, stabbed at it again with his toe, missed again, stabbed one more time, missed one more time, said, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," and smacked the bottle hard enough down on the counter to leave me surprised that it didn't break. 他拿起空瓶子，跨过垃圾桶，可以在水槽前，把他的脚，以加强对杠杆，将使顶部弹出，错过了，再次捅在他的脚趾，连连失手，刺伤一个更多的时间，错过了一次，说：“他妈的，他妈的，他妈的”，并砸在柜台上，让我惊讶的是它没有打破的瓶子够硬下来 。





HE LIKED TO TALK to me about particular stories that were favorites of his. 他喜欢谈论我，特别是他的最爱故事 。 He asked me if I had ever read "The Eighty-Yard Run" by Irwin Shaw. 他问我，如果我没有看过欧文肖“八十码的运行 “。 I said no. 我说没有。 He outlined it for me. 他简要介绍了我。 It's about a man and woman who meet in college and the man is more interested in the woman than she is in him, but when she sees him return a kickoff for an 80-yard touchdown during a scrimmage, she changes her mind, they date, end up getting married, and their marriage is unhappy. 它是关于一个男人和女人谁满足在大学和男子比她在他身上是的女人更感兴趣，但当她看到他返回一个混战期间一个一个80码达阵开球，她改变她的心中，他们的日期最终结婚了，和他们的婚姻是不满。 At one point she tries to explain modern art to him, but he says he likes pictures with horses in them. 在一个点上，她试图解释现代艺术的他，但他说，他喜欢与他们的马匹的照片。 It's a poignant and pregnant scene. 它的一个凄美怀孕的场景 。 The story, Yates says, is about two good people who never should have married each other. 耶茨说，这个故事是关于两个人根本就不应该结婚对方好的人。 I had asked him about "The Best of Everything," one of his stories, about a young couple who are about to get married, and the night before the wedding, the woman tries to seduce the man by, among other things, offering him wine, but he asks for beer instead. 我曾问他“最好的一切，”他的故事之一，大约有一对年轻夫妇，他们是即将结婚，婚礼的前一天晚上，女人试图勾引男子，除其他外，为他提供酒，但他要求，而不是啤酒。 It's a poignant and pregnant scene. 它的一个凄美怀孕的场景 。 I had told him, it's a story about two good and decent people who just never should be married. 我告诉他，这是一个约两个很好的和体面的人只是不应当结婚的人的故事。 And he had said, "Did you ever read `The Eighty-Yard Run'?" 他说，“你有没有读过`八十码奔跑'？”





I asked him about a scene in his novel The Easter Parade and he asked me if I ever read Irwin Shaw's "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses." 我问他有关的场景在他的小说“复活节游行中，他问我，如果我没有看过欧文肖的”夏季连衣裙的女孩。“ I'd mention this story or that scene and he'd ask me if I had read such and such by Hemingway, Madame Bovary by Flaubert. 我提到这个故事的那一幕，他问我，如果我读海明威，包法利夫人福楼拜等等。 Salinger. 塞林格。 Dostoyevsky. 陀斯妥耶夫斯基。





Once I walked into The Crossroads and without saying hello he said, "Did you read that new story by Tim O'Brien in the new Esquire ?" 有一次，我走进十字路口，不打招呼他说，“你看过新的故事，蒂姆奥布莱恩在新的君子吗？ “





I had. 我有。 "The Things They Carried." “的事情，他们通过。”





"Isn't that fucking something?" “这不是他妈的东西？” It was the only time I heard him use the word fucking in a positive way. 这是我唯一一次听到他用这个词在一种积极的方式他妈的。 A thousand times he used it some other way. 一千倍，他用一些其他的方式 。





Once I mentioned Faulkner, and he said, "Fucking Faulkner didn't check a dictionary often enough." 有一次，我提到福克纳，他说，“他妈的福克纳没有检查字典往往不够。”





He was a slow reader. 他是一个缓慢的的读者 。 A slow writer. 一个缓慢的作家 。 He said he woke at 4 am, wrote for eight hours, and if he had four or five hundred words at the end of the work day he thought it was a good day. 他说，他凌晨4时醒来，写了八个小时，如果他在四五百元的话一天的工作结束时，他认为这是一个很好的一天。 William Grove, the protagonist in A Good School, is afraid he isn't very bright because he reads so slowly. 威廉树丛，在一个好学校的主角，恐怕他是不是很亮，因为他读这么慢。 Yates's protagonists tend to think of themselves as witty, but never as intelligent. 耶茨的主角往往把自己看作是诙谐，但从来没有像智能。 The first time I was in one of the three apartments he lived in in Boston, I was surprised by how few books he had. 我第一次是在他住在波士顿的三个寓所之一，我很惊讶他几本书。 A single bookcase full, four shelves, maybe three feet wide. 一个完整的单书柜，四个货架，也许3英尺宽 。 Mostly paperbacks, a few hardcovers. 大部分是平装书，数的精装书。 William Kennedy's Ironweed was on its side on top, as if it had been read recently. 威廉肯尼迪的Ironweed之上，在其一侧，犹如最近被读取。





So few books might be attributed to moving frequently. 因此，几本书，可能是由于频繁移动 。 But part of it, no doubt, was a result of a common trait among readers, keeping only those books you read, much like a big-game hunter displaying his trophies. 但它的一部分，毫无疑问，读者之间的一个共同的特点，只保留那些很像一个大游戏猎人施展他的奖杯，你读的书。 Yates simply didn't read fast enough to accumulate many books. 耶茨根本没有看过足够快，积累许多书籍。 His was a literary life, but it was a life that was both difficult and unpleasant. 他是一个文学的生命，但它是一个生活困难和不愉快的 。 Writing did not make him happy. 写作没有让他开心。 Nor did reading. 也没有读。





FRANK WHEELER in Revolutionary Road . 弗兰克惠勒革命之路 。 Emily Grimes in The Easter Parade . 刘慧卿格赖姆斯在复活节游行 。 Warren Matthews in "Liars in Love." 沃伦马修斯在“恋爱中的骗子。” All of Yates's most autobiographical characters drink too much. 耶茨最自传体字符喝太多。 John Wilder in Disturbing the Peace. 约翰怀尔德在扰乱治安。 This one is about drinking too much. 这一个是关于饮酒过多。 About being institutionalized for drinking, about going to psychiatrists, about going to AA meetings, about Wilder embarrassing himself in public places. 关于精神科医生，机管局会议怀尔德尴尬自己在公共场所，饮用水制度化。 Yates writes about Wilder, "To find order in chaos--why, of course; that was what he'd wanted all his life." 耶茨写狂放，“要在混乱中找到的秩序-为什么，当然，这是他希望他的生活 。“





Chronicler of disappointed lives. 编年史的失望生活。 I learned that Yates died when I read his obituary in The New York Times on November 9, 1992. 我了解到，耶茨死了，当我读到他的讣文，1992年11月9 日在“纽约时报“。 He had been teaching at the University of Alabama and he died in the Veterans Administration hospital in Birmingham. 他曾任教于美国阿拉巴马大学，他在伯明翰的退伍军人管理局医院死亡 。 He was 66. 他是66。 The obit quoted his daughter Monica as saying he had stopped smoking a year earlier. obit援引他的话说，他已经停止吸烟，较上年同期的女儿莫妮卡 。 The lead sentence said he wrote "novels about self-deception, disappointment and grief." 导致句话说，他写道：“自我欺骗，失望和悲伤的小说 。“ He had died the previous Saturday. 他已经死了以前的星期六。 The headline called him a "Chronicler of Disappointed Lives." 标题叫他“失望生活的编年史” 。 He wrote, always, about himself. 他写道，总是他自己。





When I met with him at The Crossroads the first time, he told me he was working on a book about a speech writer for Bobby Kennedy. 当我遇到了与他第一次在十字路口，他告诉我，他在一本书为罗伯特肯尼迪的演讲稿撰写人的工作。 When he died eight years later, he was still working on the book. 8年后他去世时，他还在书上的工作。 He had been, briefly, a speech writer for Bobby Kennedy, as is a secondary character in Disturbing the Peace. 简单地说，他一直在为罗伯特肯尼迪的演讲稿撰写人，是在扰乱治安的次要人物。





When he told me stories late at night, after he had his first four or five or six drinks, I couldn't be certain of their accuracy. 当他告诉我的故事后期晚上后，他有他的第一个四，五，六杯，我不能肯定其准确性。 They certainly told the truth, the way fiction tells the truth. 他们肯定说了实话，小说讲真话。 But maybe the facts weren't quite accurate. 但也许事实并不准确。 He told me this story about being a speech writer for Bobby Kennedy: 他告诉我这个故事为罗伯特肯尼迪的演讲稿撰写人 ：





In the early 1960s Bobby Kennedy called up William Styron and asked him if he wanted to be his speech writer. 罗伯特肯尼迪在20世纪60年代初名为威廉Styron，问他如果他想成为他的演讲稿撰写人 。 Styron said no, but he knew this other writer, Richard Yates, who would be great for the job. 斯泰伦说没有，但他知道这个作家理查德耶茨，他将是伟大的工作。 Styron and Yates knew each other because Yates had been hired by film director John Frankenheimer to write the script for Lie Down in Darkness, Styron's first novel. 斯泰伦和Yates知道对方因为耶茨已经由电影导演约翰海默聘请写脚本，在黑暗中，斯泰伦的第一本小说一躺就好了。 Somebody in Kennedy's office called Yates, offered him the job, the title would be special assistant to the attorney general, and Yates accepted. 称为耶茨在肯尼迪的办公室里的人，他 ​​的工作，标题将特别助理总检察长，和Yates接受。 He had the job from early 1963 until November. 他从1963年初到11月的工作 。 The two men met briefly when Yates started the job, but Kennedy, who had a moralistic strain, was offended by Yates's drinking. 两人相识时短暂耶茨开始工作，但肯尼迪，有道德的应变，得罪耶茨的饮用水 。 So for nine months Yates wrote Kennedy's speeches. 因此，为9个月，耶茨写肯尼迪的讲话。 Bobby Kennedy got the loudest applause of his career giving those speeches, Yates told me. 罗伯特肯尼迪了，他给这些发言的职业生涯中最响亮的掌声，耶茨告诉我。 One time on an airplane Kennedy sat down next to Yates and complimented him on the speeches he wrote. 一次飞机肯尼迪旁边坐下来耶茨，并称赞他的发言，他写道 。 That was the only time Kennedy actually talked to Yates. 这是唯一的一次，肯尼迪实际上谈到到耶茨 。 When the attorney general's brother was killed in Dallas, high ranking members of the administration were expected to offer their resignations so the new president, Lyndon Johnson, could put together his own team; Johnson of course asked most of Kennedy's team to stay. 当总检察长的弟弟被杀害在达拉斯，当局的高层成员预计将提供他们的辞职，让新总统林登约翰逊，可以把自己的球队，当然约翰逊问肯尼迪的团队留下来。 The same thing happened in the attorney general's office. 同样的事情发生在总检察长办公室。 Almost everyone was asked to stay. 几乎每个人都被要求留下来。 Yates wasn't. 耶茨是没有的 。 It was the drinking. 这是饮酒。 He was still bitter about that when I talked to him about it two decades later. 他还在苦左右，当我谈到他二十年后。 He leaned across the table in The Crossroads, lowered his voice, shaped his mouth so it resembled a snarl, and asked me, "The Kennedys have four hundred fucking million dollars. Did you know that?" 他靠在桌子对面的十字路口，压低了声音，塑造了他的嘴，所以它像一个咆哮，问我：“肯尼迪有四百他妈的亿美元。你知道吗？ “





He told me another story, a related story, also late that same night: John Frankenheimer's original plan for Lie Down in Darkness was to have Henry Fonda play the father and Natalie Wood play the daughter. 他告诉我另一个故事，一个相关的故事，也晚，当天晚上：约翰海默在黑暗中一躺就好了原来的计划是亨利方达扮演的父亲和纳塔莉木材发挥的女儿。 Wood at first indicated a strong interest, but she had a lot of offers for a lot of roles, and she turned this one down. 伍德首先表示了浓厚的兴趣，但她有很多很多角色提供，她转过身来这一轮下来。 Frankenheimer then had an idea. 海默然后出了个主意。 Why couldn't Jane Fonda play the role? 为什么不能简方达扮演的角色？ The problem with that, of course, is that Lie Down in Darkness is about incest and contains a scene in which the father and daughter passionately kiss. 有这个问题，当然是那烈是在黑暗中有关乱伦和包含一个场景中，父亲和女儿热情地吻。 When Henry Fonda was informed of Frankenheimer's idea, Henry was outraged and withdrew from the project. 当亨利方达海默的想法告知，亨利被激怒了，并退出项目 。 Yates, in telling me this story, used a cliche to explain what happened next. 耶茨告诉我这个故事，用陈词滥调解释发生了什么。 "Hollywood is a small town," he said. “好莱坞是一个小镇，”他说。 No-name actors wanted to work on this particular project with crazy Frankenheimer; the people who were going to put up the money changed their minds. 没有名字的演员想在这个疯狂的海默的特定项目工作的人打算把钱改变了主意 。 Frankenheimer's plan to have Henry passionately kiss Jane on screen ruined Yates's Hollywood career; at least, that's what Yates told me, with a shrug and a sad smile. 海默的计划有亨利热情地吻毁了耶茨的好莱坞生涯屏幕上的简，至少，这是什么耶茨告诉我，一个耸肩和悲伤的微笑。





But he had an addendum. 但他有一个增编。 He told me how pretty Natalie Wood was in person, how sad her death by drowning was. 他告诉我，多么漂亮娜塔莉木的人，多么可悲她溺水死亡 。 He told me he met her at a party and she sought him out and apologized. 他告诉我，他遇见了她在一次聚会上，她要求他道歉。 She said if she hadn't pulled out of the project, the movie would have been made and Yates's career in Hollywood would have been very different. 她说，如果她没有拉项目，电影已经和耶茨在好莱坞的生涯已经非常不同。 Lie Down in Darkness has still not been made into a movie. 在黑暗中一躺就好了，至今没有被拍成电影。





HE SOMETIMES INSISTED on reading things I'd written. 有时，他坚持阅读我写的东西 。 Manuscripts of unpublished stories, one of an unpublished novel. 未出版的故事，一个未发表的小说手稿。 He would mark them up in pencil, and sit across a booth in The Crossroads and read his notations to me. 他将标志着铅笔，坐跨一个摊位在十字路口，我读他的符号。 He said he liked the way I ended stories. 他说他喜欢我的方式结束的故事。 "The perfect ending is both inevitable and a surprise," he told me. “完美的结局是不可避免的，一个惊喜，”他告诉我。 "You almost got it." “你几乎得到了它。”





Once, in the late 80s, he asked me how old I was. 有一次，在80年代末，他问我，我是多么老 。 I was in my late 40s. 我是我在40年代后期。 His face snagged a bit. 他的脸陷入僵局位。 "I would have guessed you at about thirty-five," he said. “我想你已经猜到了约三十五个，”他说。 "I thought I was just about the same age as your father." “我以为我只是作为你的父亲一样的年龄。” At the time he was about 60. 当时，他是60左右 。





My father died when I was 15, and I can never remember him having more than one drink at a time. 我的父亲去世时我15岁，我永远记得他有一次喝一杯酒以上 。 Usually when we were visiting someone else's house. 通常，当我们访问别人的房子。 I never remember beer or wine in the refrigerator, hard liquor in the cupboard. 我永远记得在冰箱，烈性酒在柜子里的啤酒或葡萄酒。 We had alcohol in the house only if there was a party. 我们在酒精的房子，如果有一方。 Most people at those parties drank beer and usually stopped after two or three. 在这些缔约方的大多数人喝啤酒，通常是两个或三个后停止。





I've been drunk twice in my life, once in my late teens at a party in the Poconos, where I was working for the summer as a waiter, and once in my late twenties, at a party at the home of an editor for a newspaper in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where I was a reporter. 我已经喝醉了两次在夏季，我在那里当服务员，一次在我的二十年代末的工作在波科诺斯党在我的生活，曾经在我的晚十几岁，在党为编辑家在威廉波特的报纸，宾夕法尼亚州，在那里我是一个记者。 Years will pass between times when I have more than three beers in a day; years will pass between times when I have beer more than two days in the same week; more than a decade has passed since I last had whiskey; I drink wine only at someone else's dinner table. 年内将倍之间传递时，我在一天内有三个以上的啤酒;年倍之间传递，当我在同一个星期啤酒超过两天，超过10年已经过去了，因为我去年有威士忌，我喝的酒只在别人的餐桌上。 Drinking has just not been a part of my life the same way it was of Yates's. 喝刚刚没有得到我生活的一部分耶茨的是同样的方式。





I wondered for a long time if he was telling me that night, early in the evening, that he saw me as sort of a son. 很长一段时间我不知道如果他告诉我，那一夜，早中晚，他看到了我儿子的排序 。 He had three daughters, no sons. 他有三个女儿，没有儿子。 He advised me not to write about the death of my son. 他劝我不要写我的儿子死亡。 It would be too painful, he said. 这将是太痛苦了，他说。 He advised me not to let my marriage crumble, as he sensed it would. 他劝我不要让我的婚姻崩溃，因为他感觉到它。 He asked me several times to tell him about playing on the college baseball team, and each time he talked ruefully about his lack of talent as an athlete. 他问我多次告诉他大学棒球队打球，每次他谈到了他对人才的缺乏懊丧地作为一个运动员。





The last time I went to The Crossroads to see him, in September, 1986, I was early. 最后一次，我去的十字路口，看到他，在1986年9月，我还早。 A waitress came up to my booth and asked if I wanted to eat. 一个女服务员走过来我的展位，并问我是否愿意吃 。 I said I was waiting for a friend but would have a cup of coffee until he came. 我说我是朋友的等待，但直到他来了，有一杯咖啡。 She brought it to me and we chatted for about a minute. 她拿来给我，我们聊了约一分钟。 I was wearing shorts and she looked at my legs and asked if I did bicycling, and I said I did, a lot. 我穿着短裤，她看着我的腿，问，如果我没有骑自行车，我说我没有，很多 。 She said she did too, and she lifted her already short shorts an inch or so to show me her legs. 她说，她过了，她抬起已经短裤一英寸左右，向我展示她的腿 。 In about ten minutes, Yates came, and sat down, and when the waitress came back, she put her hand on his shoulder and looked at me and asked, "Why didn't you tell me this was your friend." 耶茨在大约10分钟，来了，坐了下来，并女服务员回来时，她把她的手拍了拍他的肩膀，看着我，问道：“你为什么不告诉我，这是你的朋友。 “ She was slender with great legs, but her face wasn't pretty. 她是伟大的腿修长，但她的脸不漂亮。 Her nose seemed pushed in, her cheekbones non-existent, her mouth excessively small. 她的鼻子似乎推，她的颧骨不存在的，她的嘴过小 。 She would come back to our booth as Yates and I ate dinner. 她会回来Yates和我吃了晚饭，我们的展位 。 We both had Fisherman's Platters. 我们都有渔人盘片。 The waitress was unusually attentive, refilling my coffee, bringing Yates another Jim Beam and water before he asked for one, trying, unsuccessfully to talk us into having desert. 女服务员是不寻常的细心，补充我的咖啡，把耶茨另一个吉姆梁和水之前，他要求之一，尝试，失败谈我们有沙漠。 As she walked away, Yates leaned over and watched for a few seconds, then looked at me. 正如她走开，耶茨俯身看着几秒钟，然后看着我。 "She has a great ass, doesn't she." “她有一个伟大的屁股，没有她。” I nodded. 我点点头。 He added, "Too bad about her face." 他补充说，“她的脸太糟糕。” Quickly, as if to atone for his remark, he said, "But she's very nice." 很快，如果此言一出，将功补过，他说，“但她很漂亮。”





He told me he had to go someplace for about an hour but that I should meet him later in his apartment, upstairs. 他告诉我他去某处大约一个小时，但我应该满足他后来在他的公寓，楼上 。 When he left, the waitress came over and asked me where he went. 当他离开时，服务小姐走了过来，问我，他去的地方。 I told her. 我告诉她。 She asked me how I knew him. 她问我，我怎么知道他 。 I said I had written an article about him. 我说，我曾写过一篇关于他的文章 。 She said she had read all his books and loved them. 她说，她读了他所有的书籍和爱他们 。 "I feel sorry for him, the way he drinks all the time," she said, "just like his characters." “我为他感到遗憾，他喝所有的时间，”她说，“就像他的角色。” She added, "Have you read his latest novel yet?" “她补充说，：”你读过他的最新小说吗？“ No, I hadn't. 不，我没有。 Then she said, "Look, I work until about midnight. Would you like to get a cup of coffee or something then?" 然后她说，“你看，我的工作，直到午夜，你想获得一杯咖啡或什么的 ，然后呢？“ She shrugged. 她耸了耸肩。 I smiled and said I would. 我微微一笑，说我会。





Later, in Yates's apartment, he gave me a copy of his new novel, Cold Spring Harbor, and he wrote in the front. 后来，在耶茨的公寓，他给了我他的新小说，冷泉港的副本，和他在前面写 。 My name, then "A good writer, a good man, a good husband and father. With best wishes always." 我的名字，然后在“一个好作家，一个好人，一个好丈夫和父亲。总是最好的祝愿。 “ When I left the apartment, after 11 pm, I went back to The Crossroads. 当我离开公寓时，晚上11点以后，我又回到了十字路口 。 I wasn't certain exactly what I wanted. 正是我想要的，我是不是一定。 Just a cup of coffee with the waitress. 只需一杯咖啡的女服务员。 My wife didn't make this trip to Boston. 我的妻子没有使这次波士顿之旅 。 I think we both knew then that our marriage was close to being over. 我认为我们都知道，我们的婚姻是过分。 But I was still married. 但我还是结婚了。 The waitress brought me a cup of coffee and when I started to give her money, she said no, it was on her. 女服务员给我带来了一杯咖啡，当我开始给她钱，她说没有，她是。 She mentioned several places we might go when she got off. 她提到的几个地方，我们可能会去当她下车 。 An all-night restaurant. 一个通宵餐厅。 She asked me where I was staying. 她问我，我住的地方。 I told her the name of the hotel. 我告诉她，酒店的名字。 She said there were some nice places near there. 她说，附近有一些不错的地方。 She put her hand on top of mine and said she'd be right back. 矿上她把她的手，说她马上回来。 She checked on customers in other booths. 她检查了客户在其他展位。 When she came back, she looked at my copy of Cold Spring Harbor. 当她回来时，她看着我冷泉港副本 。 "Is that Dick's new book?" “这是迪克的新书吗？” I nodded. 我点点头。 "You mind if I look at it," she said as she picked it up. “你介意我看看吧，”她说，她把它捡起来 。 She flipped through a few pages, something caught her eye, and she went back to the beginning, read the inscription. 她翻了翻几页，这引起了她的眼，她又回到了开始，读的题词。 She put the book down, looked at me, walked away to the station where waitresses got water and coffee, stood there a few minutes, alone, turned and came back to me. 她把书放下，看着我，走开站女服务员得到了水和咖啡，站在那里，几分钟后，独自转身回来给我 。 She said, "I won't be able to get coffee with you tonight," and walked away. 她说：“我将无法今晚跟你的咖啡”，走开了 。



A few months later Yates called me. 几个月后，耶茨给我打电话 。 We chatted, and he asked, "That waitress, the last time you were here, whatever happened? I thought she was interested in you." 我们聊天，他问，“那女服务员，你在这里的最后一次，无论发生？我以为她是对你感兴趣。”



"She read what you wrote, the inscription in your book, about me being a good husband." “她读了你写的，在你的书题词，我是一个好丈夫。” I laughed. 我笑了。 "Well, Dick, you screwed that one up for me." “好了，迪克，你拧为我了。”



He laughed. 他笑了。 "Why do you think I wrote it?" “为什么你觉得我写的？”



RICHARD YATES WAS a chronicler of disappointed lives. 理查德耶茨是失望的生命的编年史 。 Of ruined lives. 断送生命。 Drinking ruined his life. 饮用水毁了他的生活。 Broke up two marriages. 分手了两次婚姻。 Damaged every friendship he ever had. 他过的每一个友谊损坏。 Separated him for a long time from his daughters. 分开他从他的女儿长的时间。 Yet, if he did not drink, he would not have been Richard Yates, chronicler of disappointed lives. 然而，如果他不喝酒，他不会被理查德耶茨，编年史失望的生命。 His drinking ruined him, but his drinking was absolutely necessary to his writing. 他喝酒毁了他，但他的饮用水是绝对必要的，以他的写作的。 He was, as a writer, not an observer of other people. 他，作为一个作家，而不是其他人的观察员 。 He always looked inward. 他总是回头。





I once asked him about the opening scene in a story he wrote, "Builders." 我曾问过他对开幕式现场，一个故事，他写道，“建设者 。“ The narrator remembers a time when men wore hats when they went out and he recalls on one occasion when he was wearing a "much handled brown fedora." 解说员记得当男人戴帽子时，他们走了出去，他在一次回顾时，他身穿“处理的棕色FEDORA时间。 “ But back then, he says, he would have called it a battered hat. 但当时，他说，他将呼吁受虐的帽子 。 "That was before I knew about honesty in the use of words." “那是之前，我知道有关诚实的话。” He liked that phrase. 他很喜欢这句话。 He liked that I remembered it. 他很喜欢，我想起了它。 Honesty in the use of words. 诚信在使用的话。 I've never taught a writing course since then without mentioning that phrase. 我从来不提这句话教从那时起一个写作课程。





But a writer needs something to be honest about. 但是，一个作家，需要的东西，说实话约。 If Yates had been a moderate drinker, I think, the things he had to be honest about would have been lesser things. 如果耶茨已适度饮酒者，我认为他诚实的东西，本来较轻的东西 。 His drinking, his disappointed life, saved his writing. 他喝酒，他失望的生命，救了他的写作。







MARTIN NAPARSTECK has published two novels, War Song and A Hero's Welcome , and more than 30 short stories. 马丁NAPARSTECK已出版了两部小说 ，战歌和英雄般的欢迎，和超过30个短篇小说。 He is the book reviewer for the Salt Lake Tribune and lives in Rochester, New York. 他是在盐湖城论坛报“ 和生活在罗切斯特，纽约书评。



COPYRIGHT 2001 University of Northern Iowa 版权所有2001年北爱荷华大学


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饮酒与迪克耶茨




by Martin Naparsteck 马丁Naparsteck

The North American Review , May-August 2001, p75 北美审查 ，2001年5月， P75







I ANSWERED THE PHONE after the fifth or sixth ring. 我回答后，第五或第六环的电话。 I was sitting close enough to answer it after the first ring, but I thought, with the illogic common to late nights, that maybe if I didn't pick up the damn thing no one would be there. 我坐在足够接近回答后的第一环，但我认为，不合逻辑的共同深夜，也许如果我不拿起该死的东西没有人会在那里。 My wife looked at me. 我的妻子看着我。 It was my job to answer the telephone, not hers, and anyway watching the Bonanza rerun was more her pleasure than mine. 这是我的工作，接听电话，不是她的，反正看富矿重新运行是她比我的乐趣。 A slurred voice on the other end said something I couldn't make out. 在另一端的一个含糊不清的声音说了些什么，我看不出来。 At first I thought it was someone playing a joke. 起初我还以为是有人打一个笑话。 Who calls after 10 pm anyway other than a joker? 世卫组织呼吁停止晚上10点以后，反正比一个小丑其他 ？ "I didn't hear you," I said, meaning, I didn't hear you clearly. 我说：“我没有听到你，”，意思是，我没有听到你清楚 。 The voice repeated what it had said; I could recognize just enough to realize I was being told a name, but I couldn't understand it. 声音反复说，我可以承认，就足以实现我被告知，一个名字，但我不明白它 。 I did understand by then that the caller was drunk. 我明白然后，打电话的是醉。 That, I guessed, helped explain why he was calling so late. 我猜，这有助于解释为什么他叫这么晚。 "Who is this?" “这是谁？” I asked with less annoyance than I intended. 我问比我预期的少烦恼 。 There was a pause of three or four seconds, then a gurgling sound, or maybe a sound of a throat being cleared. 有三到四秒的停顿，然后潺潺的声音，或可能被清除喉咙的声音。 A sound a drunk would make when he realizes the listener can't understand him. 一个声音，一醉，当他意识到听者无法理解他 。





"This is Dick Yates." “这是迪克耶茨。”





"Who?" “谁？” I asked before I realized I now understood who was calling. 我问，我才意识到我现在知道谁在呼唤 。 I had written to Richard Yates four or five weeks earlier. 我曾写信给理查德耶茨四，五个星期前。 Actually, I'd written to his publisher, Seymour Lawrence, asking that my letter be forwarded to Yates. 其实，我写信给他的出版商，西摩劳伦斯，问我的信被转发到耶茨。





"Richard Yates," he said. “理查德耶茨，”他说。 His tone seemed designed to clarify his first name, as if to explain to himself that that must be the reason I didn't understand him. 他的语气似乎旨在澄清他的名字，仿佛自己解释，必须我不明白他的原因。





He repeated his name and said he had received my letter. 他重复了他的名字，说他收到我的信 。 "Why the fuck they took so long to send it to me, I don't know." “为什么他妈的，他们花了这么长时间，将它发送给我，我不知道 。“ Another throat clearing. 另一个清嗓。 "Well, you want to interview me, that's OK with me. Do it by telephone or come up here." “好，你要来采访我，我确定，它通过电话或来这里。” I wanted to come up there, but I didn't know where up there was. 我希望来这里，但我不知道那里。 I knew only the address of his publisher. 我只知道他的出版商的地址 。 "Up here, up here, Boston, up here." 他说：“在这里，在这里，波士顿，在这里。“





Dick Yates and I would become friends, or perhaps more accurately, he would become my mentor and he would never learn, once he had been drinking, to hide his annoyance with me. 耶茨迪克和我成为朋友，或许更精确地，他会成为我的良师益友，他将永远也学不会，有一次他曾喝酒，跟我来隐藏他的烦恼。





AUTUMN, 1984, his eighth book, the novel Young Hearts Crying , has just been published, and we meet in The Crossroads, a bar on Beacon Street in Boston's Back Bay. ，1984年秋季，他的第八册， 小说哭泣的幼小的心灵，刚刚出版，和大家见面的十字路口，灯塔街就在波士顿的Back Bay酒吧。 A character in the novel says, "We spent our whole lives yearning; isn't that the God damnedest thing?" 一个字符在小说中说，“我们花了我们的整个生活的向往;是不是神damnedest的事情吗 ？“





I'm late for the meeting by two hours because the directions Yates gave me are wrong and I end up downtown and have a hard time finding my way back, but when I arrive he's not upset, but I can smell the liquor and I can see it in his face. 我迟到两小时的会议，因为方向耶茨给了我是错的，我最终市中心很难找到我的方式，但是当我到达他的不难过，但我可以闻到酒，我可以在他的脸上看到。 It's a face that would be handsome if it didn't contain the evidence, lines and sagging skin and tiredness, of decades of drinking. 这是一个，如果它不包含的证据，线条和皮肤松弛和疲倦，几十年的饮用水，将帅气的脸。 He's tall and slender and he reminds me of drunks who roam up and down East Avenue in Rochester, New York, asking, sometimes demanding, money from anyone dressed in a suit. 他的身高和修长，他提醒我醉鬼谁漫游向上和向下，纽约州罗彻斯特市东大街，问，有时要求，从穿西装的人钱。 Right after I sit down the waitress brings him a glass of water and a shot glass filled, I learn later, with Jim Beam, and a bottle of Rolling Rock. 右后我坐下来的女服务员把他一杯水和玻璃填充了一枪，我学习后，吉姆梁，一瓶滚石。 He tips the Jim Beam into the water glass, sticks his forefinger in, and stirs. 他提示吉姆梁成一杯水，坚持他的食指，并搅拌 。





Because I'm so late the interview doesn't start until the next day, and late the next night, after he has had--I've lost exact count--at least eight or nine Jim Beams and waters and two or three Rolling Rocks, I ask him about the time he spent in Hollywood. 因为我这么晚不采访，直到第二天开始，和后期的第二天晚上，此前他已-我失去了精确计数-至少有八，九吉姆梁和水域两个或三个滚动的岩石，我问他的时候，他在好莱坞的花 。 I delayed the subject because I knew it was not a happy time. 我延迟的问题，因为我知道这是不是一个快乐的时间。 He avoids several of my questions, but when I'm insistent that he tell me something, he leans forward and says, jabbing his forefinger into the table with each word, "I don't want to talk about that fucking time in fucking Hollywood writing for the fucking movies." 他避免了我的几个问题，但是当我坚持说，他告诉我的东西，他向前倾，并说，每个字表猛刺他的食指，“我不想谈他妈的好莱坞，他妈的时间约他妈的电影“写作。





I would make four trips to meet with Yates in The Crossroads over the next two years and we would talk on the telephone a dozen times, and three aspects of his personality repeated themselves to me over and over. 我要四趟，以满足在十字路口与耶茨在未来两年，我们会在电话上谈了十几次，和他的个性三个方面重复自己我一遍又一遍。 He drank and drank and drank. 他喝，喝，喝。 When he drank he used the work fucking over and over. 当他喝了，他用工作他妈的一遍又一遍 。 Early in a day, before he began his drinking, he was polite and thoughtful and helpful. 早在一天前，他开始了他的饮用水，他礼貌周到，乐于助人。





THE CROSSROADS was within walking distance of Fenway Park, where he had never been, and of Boston University, where he sometimes taught. 十字路口是在步行距离Fenway公园，在那里，他从未和波士顿大学，在那里他有时教之内。 For a while he lived in an apartment on Beacon about a block east of The Crossroads, and for a while he lived in a place on Commonwealth, three and a half blocks south, and for a while he lived in a two-room place just above the bar. 有一段时间他住在一个约的十字路口地块东至灯塔公寓，一段时间，他住在一个地方，三个联合体，南半块，一个，而他住在两个房间的地方以上的酒吧。 All the time he did almost all of his drinking in The Crossroads or in the apartments. 所有的时间，他却在十字路口或在公寓几乎所有他的饮用水 。 The Crossroads had a long narrow room with a bar and another long narrow room with booths. 十字路口有一个狭长的房间酒吧和另一个长狭窄的房间展位。 He always sat at a booth. 他总是坐在一个摊位。 The place served large portions of high fat food. 地方服务的高脂肪食物的大部分 。 He particularly liked the Fisherman's Platter with its fried clams, fried onion rings, fried several other things. 炒蚬，炸洋葱圈，炒几个其他的东西，他特别喜欢渔夫的盘片。 The waitresses were friendly, called him Dick, knew he was a writer, but didn't read his books. 女服务员友好的，叫他迪克，知道他是一个作家，但没有看过他的书 。





On one trip to Boston, my wife and our year-and-a-half-old daughter came along, and Yates invited us up to his Beacon Street apartment. 在一次旅行到波士顿，我的妻子和岁一年半的女儿走过来，和耶茨邀请我们到他的灯塔街的公寓。 I bent over to pick up the stroller my daughter was in, but he insisted on taking the front end. 我弯腰捡起我的女儿是在童车，但他坚持到前端。 His place was on the second floor, and between the outside steps, maybe eight or ten of them, and the inside flight, he was puffing heavily by the time we reached his door. 他的位置是在二楼，和外面的步骤之间，也许八，其中10个，内飞行，他喷着严重的时候，我们到达了他的门。 He smoked about as heavily as he drank. 他熏大约为重，他喝了 。





Once my wife and I insisted he join us for dinner at a restaurant my wife wanted to visit on Bunker Hill. 当我和妻子坚持他共进晚餐我的妻子想访问“邦克山”我们在一家餐馆。 He pulled out the chair for Ruth to sit in, talked to my daughter, America, told her how pretty she was, told us he thought George Washington really had eaten in this place, asked me if we planned to see the Red Sox before we left town. 他掏出为露丝坐在椅子上，交谈，我的女儿，美国，告诉她，她是多么漂亮，告诉我们他认为乔治华盛顿真的在这个地方吃，问我，如果我们的计划之前，我们看到红袜左镇。 He had green spaghetti and one glass of red wine, and later Ruth told me how charming she thought he was. 他绿色的面条和一杯红酒，后来露丝告诉我，她以为他是多么迷人。 I agreed. 我同意了。





Once, in his apartment above The Crossroads he filled a 10-ounce glass to the brim with Jim Beam and handed it to me. 有一次，在他的公寓十字路口以上，他填补了10盎司的玻璃与吉姆梁满满当当，并把它交给我。 He filled another for himself. 他填补自己另一个。 He finished his in about ten minutes, and I had taken only two sips from mine. 他完成了他在大约10分钟，我只有两个矿采取了几口。 He got up and filled his glass again, asked me if I wanted more, and when I said no, he sat down. 他站起来，又充满了他的玻璃，问我，如果我想要更多的，当我说没有，他坐了下来。 By the time he was filling his glass the third time, he snapped at me. 他被灌他的玻璃第三次的时候，他呵斥我 。 "What's wrong with your drink? Want some fucking ice?" “你喝什么错？想一些他妈的冰吗？ “ A half hour later he went into the bathroom, kept the door open, I heard his piss hit the bowl's water, and I got up and walked to the kitchen sink, poured all but about an ounce of my whiskey into the sink, and sat down. 一个半小时后，他去到浴室，保持敞开了大门，听到他的小便打在碗里的水，我得到了最多和厨房水槽走去，浇入水槽所有，但对一盎司我的威士忌，并坐在下来。





When he came out of the bathroom, zipping himself up as he did, I took a sip from my glass. 当他走出浴室，压缩自己，像他那样，我从我的杯子，呷了一口 。 The idea was to make it easy for him to think I had been drinking. 当时的想法是很容易让他觉得我一直喝。 Drunks feel insulted if you don't drink with them, as if your abstinence is a slap in the face. 醉鬼觉得侮辱，如果你不与他们喝，如果您的禁欲是一个耳光 。 He looked at me, squinted, said, "You need more," walked to the kitchen counter, picked up the bottle of Jim Beam, walked over to me, poured whiskey into my glass, and when the bottle was drained empty before my glass was half full I felt relief, but he just walked back to the kitchen, reached above the sink, opened a cabinet, took out another bottle of Jim Beam, took off the cap, walked back to me, filled my glass, overfilled it so some spilled on my trousers, and he then walked to the table that held his two-thirds full glass, filled it to the top, over-filled it so some spilled on the table, put the cap on the bottle, walked to the kitchen, put the bottle on the counter. 他看着我，眯起眼睛，说：“您需要，”走到厨房柜台，拿起一瓶吉姆梁，我走了过来，我的玻璃倒入威士忌，而当瓶子被耗尽之前，我的玻璃空半满我觉得救济，但他只是走回厨房，水槽上方达成，开了一个柜，拿出另一瓶吉姆梁，脱下帽，走回我，充满了我的的玻璃，装得过满，以便洒在我的裤子，然后，他走到表，举行他三分之二的全玻璃，填补顶部，过充，使一些洒在桌子上，放在瓶帽，走到厨房，放在柜台上的一瓶。 He picked up the empty bottle, stepped over to the trash can in front of the sink, put his foot out to step on the lever that would make the top pop up, missed, stabbed at it again with his toe, missed again, stabbed one more time, missed one more time, said, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," and smacked the bottle hard enough down on the counter to leave me surprised that it didn't break. 他拿起空瓶子，跨过垃圾桶，可以在水槽前，把他的脚，以加强对杠杆，将使顶部弹出，错过了，再次捅在他的脚趾，连连失手，刺伤一个更多的时间，错过了一次，说：“他妈的，他妈的，他妈的”，并砸在柜台上，让我惊讶的是它没有打破的瓶子够硬下来 。





HE LIKED TO TALK to me about particular stories that were favorites of his. 他喜欢谈论我，特别是他的最爱故事 。 He asked me if I had ever read "The Eighty-Yard Run" by Irwin Shaw. 他问我，如果我没有看过欧文肖“八十码的运行 “。 I said no. 我说没有。 He outlined it for me. 他简要介绍了我。 It's about a man and woman who meet in college and the man is more interested in the woman than she is in him, but when she sees him return a kickoff for an 80-yard touchdown during a scrimmage, she changes her mind, they date, end up getting married, and their marriage is unhappy. 它是关于一个男人和女人谁满足在大学和男子比她在他身上是的女人更感兴趣，但当她看到他返回一个混战期间一个一个80码达阵开球，她改变她的心中，他们的日期最终结婚了，和他们的婚姻是不满。 At one point she tries to explain modern art to him, but he says he likes pictures with horses in them. 在一个点上，她试图解释现代艺术的他，但他说，他喜欢与他们的马匹的照片。 It's a poignant and pregnant scene. 它的一个凄美怀孕的场景 。 The story, Yates says, is about two good people who never should have married each other. 耶茨说，这个故事是关于两个人根本就不应该结婚对方好的人。 I had asked him about "The Best of Everything," one of his stories, about a young couple who are about to get married, and the night before the wedding, the woman tries to seduce the man by, among other things, offering him wine, but he asks for beer instead. 我曾问他“最好的一切，”他的故事之一，大约有一对年轻夫妇，他们是即将结婚，婚礼的前一天晚上，女人试图勾引男子，除其他外，为他提供酒，但他要求，而不是啤酒。 It's a poignant and pregnant scene. 它的一个凄美怀孕的场景 。 I had told him, it's a story about two good and decent people who just never should be married. 我告诉他，这是一个约两个很好的和体面的人只是不应当结婚的人的故事。 And he had said, "Did you ever read `The Eighty-Yard Run'?" 他说，“你有没有读过`八十码奔跑'？”





I asked him about a scene in his novel The Easter Parade and he asked me if I ever read Irwin Shaw's "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses." 我问他有关的场景在他的小说“复活节游行中，他问我，如果我没有看过欧文肖的”夏季连衣裙的女孩。“ I'd mention this story or that scene and he'd ask me if I had read such and such by Hemingway, Madame Bovary by Flaubert. 我提到这个故事的那一幕，他问我，如果我读海明威，包法利夫人福楼拜等等。 Salinger. 塞林格。 Dostoyevsky. 陀斯妥耶夫斯基。





Once I walked into The Crossroads and without saying hello he said, "Did you read that new story by Tim O'Brien in the new Esquire ?" 有一次，我走进十字路口，不打招呼他说，“你看过新的故事，蒂姆奥布莱恩在新的君子吗？ “





I had. 我有。 "The Things They Carried." “的事情，他们通过。”





"Isn't that fucking something?" “这不是他妈的东西？” It was the only time I heard him use the word fucking in a positive way. 这是我唯一一次听到他用这个词在一种积极的方式他妈的。 A thousand times he used it some other way. 一千倍，他用一些其他的方式 。





Once I mentioned Faulkner, and he said, "Fucking Faulkner didn't check a dictionary often enough." 有一次，我提到福克纳，他说，“他妈的福克纳没有检查字典往往不够。”





He was a slow reader. 他是一个缓慢的的读者 。 A slow writer. 一个缓慢的作家 。 He said he woke at 4 am, wrote for eight hours, and if he had four or five hundred words at the end of the work day he thought it was a good day. 他说，他凌晨4时醒来，写了八个小时，如果他在四五百元的话一天的工作结束时，他认为这是一个很好的一天。 William Grove, the protagonist in A Good School, is afraid he isn't very bright because he reads so slowly. 威廉树丛，在一个好学校的主角，恐怕他是不是很亮，因为他读这么慢。 Yates's protagonists tend to think of themselves as witty, but never as intelligent. 耶茨的主角往往把自己看作是诙谐，但从来没有像智能。 The first time I was in one of the three apartments he lived in in Boston, I was surprised by how few books he had. 我第一次是在他住在波士顿的三个寓所之一，我很惊讶他几本书。 A single bookcase full, four shelves, maybe three feet wide. 一个完整的单书柜，四个货架，也许3英尺宽 。 Mostly paperbacks, a few hardcovers. 大部分是平装书，数的精装书。 William Kennedy's Ironweed was on its side on top, as if it had been read recently. 威廉肯尼迪的Ironweed之上，在其一侧，犹如最近被读取。





So few books might be attributed to moving frequently. 因此，几本书，可能是由于频繁移动 。 But part of it, no doubt, was a result of a common trait among readers, keeping only those books you read, much like a big-game hunter displaying his trophies. 但它的一部分，毫无疑问，读者之间的一个共同的特点，只保留那些很像一个大游戏猎人施展他的奖杯，你读的书。 Yates simply didn't read fast enough to accumulate many books. 耶茨根本没有看过足够快，积累许多书籍。 His was a literary life, but it was a life that was both difficult and unpleasant. 他是一个文学的生命，但它是一个生活困难和不愉快的 。 Writing did not make him happy. 写作没有让他开心。 Nor did reading. 也没有读。





FRANK WHEELER in Revolutionary Road . 弗兰克惠勒革命之路 。 Emily Grimes in The Easter Parade . 刘慧卿格赖姆斯在复活节游行 。 Warren Matthews in "Liars in Love." 沃伦马修斯在“恋爱中的骗子。” All of Yates's most autobiographical characters drink too much. 耶茨最自传体字符喝太多。 John Wilder in Disturbing the Peace. 约翰怀尔德在扰乱治安。 This one is about drinking too much. 这一个是关于饮酒过多。 About being institutionalized for drinking, about going to psychiatrists, about going to AA meetings, about Wilder embarrassing himself in public places. 关于精神科医生，机管局会议怀尔德尴尬自己在公共场所，饮用水制度化。 Yates writes about Wilder, "To find order in chaos--why, of course; that was what he'd wanted all his life." 耶茨写狂放，“要在混乱中找到的秩序-为什么，当然，这是他希望他的生活 。“





Chronicler of disappointed lives. 编年史的失望生活。 I learned that Yates died when I read his obituary in The New York Times on November 9, 1992. 我了解到，耶茨死了，当我读到他的讣文，1992年11月9 日在“纽约时报“。 He had been teaching at the University of Alabama and he died in the Veterans Administration hospital in Birmingham. 他曾任教于美国阿拉巴马大学，他在伯明翰的退伍军人管理局医院死亡 。 He was 66. 他是66。 The obit quoted his daughter Monica as saying he had stopped smoking a year earlier. obit援引他的话说，他已经停止吸烟，较上年同期的女儿莫妮卡 。 The lead sentence said he wrote "novels about self-deception, disappointment and grief." 导致句话说，他写道：“自我欺骗，失望和悲伤的小说 。“ He had died the previous Saturday. 他已经死了以前的星期六。 The headline called him a "Chronicler of Disappointed Lives." 标题叫他“失望生活的编年史” 。 He wrote, always, about himself. 他写道，总是他自己。





When I met with him at The Crossroads the first time, he told me he was working on a book about a speech writer for Bobby Kennedy. 当我遇到了与他第一次在十字路口，他告诉我，他在一本书为罗伯特肯尼迪的演讲稿撰写人的工作。 When he died eight years later, he was still working on the book. 8年后他去世时，他还在书上的工作。 He had been, briefly, a speech writer for Bobby Kennedy, as is a secondary character in Disturbing the Peace. 简单地说，他一直在为罗伯特肯尼迪的演讲稿撰写人，是在扰乱治安的次要人物。





When he told me stories late at night, after he had his first four or five or six drinks, I couldn't be certain of their accuracy. 当他告诉我的故事后期晚上后，他有他的第一个四，五，六杯，我不能肯定其准确性。 They certainly told the truth, the way fiction tells the truth. 他们肯定说了实话，小说讲真话。 But maybe the facts weren't quite accurate. 但也许事实并不准确。 He told me this story about being a speech writer for Bobby Kennedy: 他告诉我这个故事为罗伯特肯尼迪的演讲稿撰写人 ：





In the early 1960s Bobby Kennedy called up William Styron and asked him if he wanted to be his speech writer. 罗伯特肯尼迪在20世纪60年代初名为威廉Styron，问他如果他想成为他的演讲稿撰写人 。 Styron said no, but he knew this other writer, Richard Yates, who would be great for the job. 斯泰伦说没有，但他知道这个作家理查德耶茨，他将是伟大的工作。 Styron and Yates knew each other because Yates had been hired by film director John Frankenheimer to write the script for Lie Down in Darkness, Styron's first novel. 斯泰伦和Yates知道对方因为耶茨已经由电影导演约翰海默聘请写脚本，在黑暗中，斯泰伦的第一本小说一躺就好了。 Somebody in Kennedy's office called Yates, offered him the job, the title would be special assistant to the attorney general, and Yates accepted. 称为耶茨在肯尼迪的办公室里的人，他 ​​的工作，标题将特别助理总检察长，和Yates接受。 He had the job from early 1963 until November. 他从1963年初到11月的工作 。 The two men met briefly when Yates started the job, but Kennedy, who had a moralistic strain, was offended by Yates's drinking. 两人相识时短暂耶茨开始工作，但肯尼迪，有道德的应变，得罪耶茨的饮用水 。 So for nine months Yates wrote Kennedy's speeches. 因此，为9个月，耶茨写肯尼迪的讲话。 Bobby Kennedy got the loudest applause of his career giving those speeches, Yates told me. 罗伯特肯尼迪了，他给这些发言的职业生涯中最响亮的掌声，耶茨告诉我。 One time on an airplane Kennedy sat down next to Yates and complimented him on the speeches he wrote. 一次飞机肯尼迪旁边坐下来耶茨，并称赞他的发言，他写道 。 That was the only time Kennedy actually talked to Yates. 这是唯一的一次，肯尼迪实际上谈到到耶茨 。 When the attorney general's brother was killed in Dallas, high ranking members of the administration were expected to offer their resignations so the new president, Lyndon Johnson, could put together his own team; Johnson of course asked most of Kennedy's team to stay. 当总检察长的弟弟被杀害在达拉斯，当局的高层成员预计将提供他们的辞职，让新总统林登约翰逊，可以把自己的球队，当然约翰逊问肯尼迪的团队留下来。 The same thing happened in the attorney general's office. 同样的事情发生在总检察长办公室。 Almost everyone was asked to stay. 几乎每个人都被要求留下来。 Yates wasn't. 耶茨是没有的 。 It was the drinking. 这是饮酒。 He was still bitter about that when I talked to him about it two decades later. 他还在苦左右，当我谈到他二十年后。 He leaned across the table in The Crossroads, lowered his voice, shaped his mouth so it resembled a snarl, and asked me, "The Kennedys have four hundred fucking million dollars. Did you know that?" 他靠在桌子对面的十字路口，压低了声音，塑造了他的嘴，所以它像一个咆哮，问我：“肯尼迪有四百他妈的亿美元。你知道吗？ “





He told me another story, a related story, also late that same night: John Frankenheimer's original plan for Lie Down in Darkness was to have Henry Fonda play the father and Natalie Wood play the daughter. 他告诉我另一个故事，一个相关的故事，也晚，当天晚上：约翰海默在黑暗中一躺就好了原来的计划是亨利方达扮演的父亲和纳塔莉木材发挥的女儿。 Wood at first indicated a strong interest, but she had a lot of offers for a lot of roles, and she turned this one down. 伍德首先表示了浓厚的兴趣，但她有很多很多角色提供，她转过身来这一轮下来。 Frankenheimer then had an idea. 海默然后出了个主意。 Why couldn't Jane Fonda play the role? 为什么不能简方达扮演的角色？ The problem with that, of course, is that Lie Down in Darkness is about incest and contains a scene in which the father and daughter passionately kiss. 有这个问题，当然是那烈是在黑暗中有关乱伦和包含一个场景中，父亲和女儿热情地吻。 When Henry Fonda was informed of Frankenheimer's idea, Henry was outraged and withdrew from the project. 当亨利方达海默的想法告知，亨利被激怒了，并退出项目 。 Yates, in telling me this story, used a cliche to explain what happened next. 耶茨告诉我这个故事，用陈词滥调解释发生了什么。 "Hollywood is a small town," he said. “好莱坞是一个小镇，”他说。 No-name actors wanted to work on this particular project with crazy Frankenheimer; the people who were going to put up the money changed their minds. 没有名字的演员想在这个疯狂的海默的特定项目工作的人打算把钱改变了主意 。 Frankenheimer's plan to have Henry passionately kiss Jane on screen ruined Yates's Hollywood career; at least, that's what Yates told me, with a shrug and a sad smile. 海默的计划有亨利热情地吻毁了耶茨的好莱坞生涯屏幕上的简，至少，这是什么耶茨告诉我，一个耸肩和悲伤的微笑。





But he had an addendum. 但他有一个增编。 He told me how pretty Natalie Wood was in person, how sad her death by drowning was. 他告诉我，多么漂亮娜塔莉木的人，多么可悲她溺水死亡 。 He told me he met her at a party and she sought him out and apologized. 他告诉我，他遇见了她在一次聚会上，她要求他道歉。 She said if she hadn't pulled out of the project, the movie would have been made and Yates's career in Hollywood would have been very different. 她说，如果她没有拉项目，电影已经和耶茨在好莱坞的生涯已经非常不同。 Lie Down in Darkness has still not been made into a movie. 在黑暗中一躺就好了，至今没有被拍成电影。





HE SOMETIMES INSISTED on reading things I'd written. 有时，他坚持阅读我写的东西 。 Manuscripts of unpublished stories, one of an unpublished novel. 未出版的故事，一个未发表的小说手稿。 He would mark them up in pencil, and sit across a booth in The Crossroads and read his notations to me. 他将标志着铅笔，坐跨一个摊位在十字路口，我读他的符号。 He said he liked the way I ended stories. 他说他喜欢我的方式结束的故事。 "The perfect ending is both inevitable and a surprise," he told me. “完美的结局是不可避免的，一个惊喜，”他告诉我。 "You almost got it." “你几乎得到了它。”





Once, in the late 80s, he asked me how old I was. 有一次，在80年代末，他问我，我是多么老 。 I was in my late 40s. 我是我在40年代后期。 His face snagged a bit. 他的脸陷入僵局位。 "I would have guessed you at about thirty-five," he said. “我想你已经猜到了约三十五个，”他说。 "I thought I was just about the same age as your father." “我以为我只是作为你的父亲一样的年龄。” At the time he was about 60. 当时，他是60左右 。





My father died when I was 15, and I can never remember him having more than one drink at a time. 我的父亲去世时我15岁，我永远记得他有一次喝一杯酒以上 。 Usually when we were visiting someone else's house. 通常，当我们访问别人的房子。 I never remember beer or wine in the refrigerator, hard liquor in the cupboard. 我永远记得在冰箱，烈性酒在柜子里的啤酒或葡萄酒。 We had alcohol in the house only if there was a party. 我们在酒精的房子，如果有一方。 Most people at those parties drank beer and usually stopped after two or three. 在这些缔约方的大多数人喝啤酒，通常是两个或三个后停止。





I've been drunk twice in my life, once in my late teens at a party in the Poconos, where I was working for the summer as a waiter, and once in my late twenties, at a party at the home of an editor for a newspaper in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where I was a reporter. 我已经喝醉了两次在夏季，我在那里当服务员，一次在我的二十年代末的工作在波科诺斯党在我的生活，曾经在我的晚十几岁，在党为编辑家在威廉波特的报纸，宾夕法尼亚州，在那里我是一个记者。 Years will pass between times when I have more than three beers in a day; years will pass between times when I have beer more than two days in the same week; more than a decade has passed since I last had whiskey; I drink wine only at someone else's dinner table. 年内将倍之间传递时，我在一天内有三个以上的啤酒;年倍之间传递，当我在同一个星期啤酒超过两天，超过10年已经过去了，因为我去年有威士忌，我喝的酒只在别人的餐桌上。 Drinking has just not been a part of my life the same way it was of Yates's. 喝刚刚没有得到我生活的一部分耶茨的是同样的方式。





I wondered for a long time if he was telling me that night, early in the evening, that he saw me as sort of a son. 很长一段时间我不知道如果他告诉我，那一夜，早中晚，他看到了我儿子的排序 。 He had three daughters, no sons. 他有三个女儿，没有儿子。 He advised me not to write about the death of my son. 他劝我不要写我的儿子死亡。 It would be too painful, he said. 这将是太痛苦了，他说。 He advised me not to let my marriage crumble, as he sensed it would. 他劝我不要让我的婚姻崩溃，因为他感觉到它。 He asked me several times to tell him about playing on the college baseball team, and each time he talked ruefully about his lack of talent as an athlete. 他问我多次告诉他大学棒球队打球，每次他谈到了他对人才的缺乏懊丧地作为一个运动员。





The last time I went to The Crossroads to see him, in September, 1986, I was early. 最后一次，我去的十字路口，看到他，在1986年9月，我还早。 A waitress came up to my booth and asked if I wanted to eat. 一个女服务员走过来我的展位，并问我是否愿意吃 。 I said I was waiting for a friend but would have a cup of coffee until he came. 我说我是朋友的等待，但直到他来了，有一杯咖啡。 She brought it to me and we chatted for about a minute. 她拿来给我，我们聊了约一分钟。 I was wearing shorts and she looked at my legs and asked if I did bicycling, and I said I did, a lot. 我穿着短裤，她看着我的腿，问，如果我没有骑自行车，我说我没有，很多 。 She said she did too, and she lifted her already short shorts an inch or so to show me her legs. 她说，她过了，她抬起已经短裤一英寸左右，向我展示她的腿 。 In about ten minutes, Yates came, and sat down, and when the waitress came back, she put her hand on his shoulder and looked at me and asked, "Why didn't you tell me this was your friend." 耶茨在大约10分钟，来了，坐了下来，并女服务员回来时，她把她的手拍了拍他的肩膀，看着我，问道：“你为什么不告诉我，这是你的朋友。 “ She was slender with great legs, but her face wasn't pretty. 她是伟大的腿修长，但她的脸不漂亮。 Her nose seemed pushed in, her cheekbones non-existent, her mouth excessively small. 她的鼻子似乎推，她的颧骨不存在的，她的嘴过小 。 She would come back to our booth as Yates and I ate dinner. 她会回来Yates和我吃了晚饭，我们的展位 。 We both had Fisherman's Platters. 我们都有渔人盘片。 The waitress was unusually attentive, refilling my coffee, bringing Yates another Jim Beam and water before he asked for one, trying, unsuccessfully to talk us into having desert. 女服务员是不寻常的细心，补充我的咖啡，把耶茨另一个吉姆梁和水之前，他要求之一，尝试，失败谈我们有沙漠。 As she walked away, Yates leaned over and watched for a few seconds, then looked at me. 正如她走开，耶茨俯身看着几秒钟，然后看着我。 "She has a great ass, doesn't she." “她有一个伟大的屁股，没有她。” I nodded. 我点点头。 He added, "Too bad about her face." 他补充说，“她的脸太糟糕。” Quickly, as if to atone for his remark, he said, "But she's very nice." 很快，如果此言一出，将功补过，他说，“但她很漂亮。”





He told me he had to go someplace for about an hour but that I should meet him later in his apartment, upstairs. 他告诉我他去某处大约一个小时，但我应该满足他后来在他的公寓，楼上 。 When he left, the waitress came over and asked me where he went. 当他离开时，服务小姐走了过来，问我，他去的地方。 I told her. 我告诉她。 She asked me how I knew him. 她问我，我怎么知道他 。 I said I had written an article about him. 我说，我曾写过一篇关于他的文章 。 She said she had read all his books and loved them. 她说，她读了他所有的书籍和爱他们 。 "I feel sorry for him, the way he drinks all the time," she said, "just like his characters." “我为他感到遗憾，他喝所有的时间，”她说，“就像他的角色。” She added, "Have you read his latest novel yet?" “她补充说，：”你读过他的最新小说吗？“ No, I hadn't. 不，我没有。 Then she said, "Look, I work until about midnight. Would you like to get a cup of coffee or something then?" 然后她说，“你看，我的工作，直到午夜，你想获得一杯咖啡或什么的 ，然后呢？“ She shrugged. 她耸了耸肩。 I smiled and said I would. 我微微一笑，说我会。





Later, in Yates's apartment, he gave me a copy of his new novel, Cold Spring Harbor, and he wrote in the front. 后来，在耶茨的公寓，他给了我他的新小说，冷泉港的副本，和他在前面写 。 My name, then "A good writer, a good man, a good husband and father. With best wishes always." 我的名字，然后在“一个好作家，一个好人，一个好丈夫和父亲。总是最好的祝愿。 “ When I left the apartment, after 11 pm, I went back to The Crossroads. 当我离开公寓时，晚上11点以后，我又回到了十字路口 。 I wasn't certain exactly what I wanted. 正是我想要的，我是不是一定。 Just a cup of coffee with the waitress. 只需一杯咖啡的女服务员。 My wife didn't make this trip to Boston. 我的妻子没有使这次波士顿之旅 。 I think we both knew then that our marriage was close to being over. 我认为我们都知道，我们的婚姻是过分。 But I was still married. 但我还是结婚了。 The waitress brought me a cup of coffee and when I started to give her money, she said no, it was on her. 女服务员给我带来了一杯咖啡，当我开始给她钱，她说没有，她是。 She mentioned several places we might go when she got off. 她提到的几个地方，我们可能会去当她下车 。 An all-night restaurant. 一个通宵餐厅。 She asked me where I was staying. 她问我，我住的地方。 I told her the name of the hotel. 我告诉她，酒店的名字。 She said there were some nice places near there. 她说，附近有一些不错的地方。 She put her hand on top of mine and said she'd be right back. 矿上她把她的手，说她马上回来。 She checked on customers in other booths. 她检查了客户在其他展位。 When she came back, she looked at my copy of Cold Spring Harbor. 当她回来时，她看着我冷泉港副本 。 "Is that Dick's new book?" “这是迪克的新书吗？” I nodded. 我点点头。 "You mind if I look at it," she said as she picked it up. “你介意我看看吧，”她说，她把它捡起来 。 She flipped through a few pages, something caught her eye, and she went back to the beginning, read the inscription. 她翻了翻几页，这引起了她的眼，她又回到了开始，读的题词。 She put the book down, looked at me, walked away to the station where waitresses got water and coffee, stood there a few minutes, alone, turned and came back to me. 她把书放下，看着我，走开站女服务员得到了水和咖啡，站在那里，几分钟后，独自转身回来给我 。 She said, "I won't be able to get coffee with you tonight," and walked away. 她说：“我将无法今晚跟你的咖啡”，走开了 。



A few months later Yates called me. 几个月后，耶茨给我打电话 。 We chatted, and he asked, "That waitress, the last time you were here, whatever happened? I thought she was interested in you." 我们聊天，他问，“那女服务员，你在这里的最后一次，无论发生？我以为她是对你感兴趣。”



"She read what you wrote, the inscription in your book, about me being a good husband." “她读了你写的，在你的书题词，我是一个好丈夫。” I laughed. 我笑了。 "Well, Dick, you screwed that one up for me." “好了，迪克，你拧为我了。”



He laughed. 他笑了。 "Why do you think I wrote it?" “为什么你觉得我写的？”



RICHARD YATES WAS a chronicler of disappointed lives. 理查德耶茨是失望的生命的编年史 。 Of ruined lives. 断送生命。 Drinking ruined his life. 饮用水毁了他的生活。 Broke up two marriages. 分手了两次婚姻。 Damaged every friendship he ever had. 他过的每一个友谊损坏。 Separated him for a long time from his daughters. 分开他从他的女儿长的时间。 Yet, if he did not drink, he would not have been Richard Yates, chronicler of disappointed lives. 然而，如果他不喝酒，他不会被理查德耶茨，编年史失望的生命。 His drinking ruined him, but his drinking was absolutely necessary to his writing. 他喝酒毁了他，但他的饮用水是绝对必要的，以他的写作的。 He was, as a writer, not an observer of other people. 他，作为一个作家，而不是其他人的观察员 。 He always looked inward. 他总是回头。





I once asked him about the opening scene in a story he wrote, "Builders." 我曾问过他对开幕式现场，一个故事，他写道，“建设者 。“ The narrator remembers a time when men wore hats when they went out and he recalls on one occasion when he was wearing a "much handled brown fedora." 解说员记得当男人戴帽子时，他们走了出去，他在一次回顾时，他身穿“处理的棕色FEDORA时间。 “ But back then, he says, he would have called it a battered hat. 但当时，他说，他将呼吁受虐的帽子 。 "That was before I knew about honesty in the use of words." “那是之前，我知道有关诚实的话。” He liked that phrase. 他很喜欢这句话。 He liked that I remembered it. 他很喜欢，我想起了它。 Honesty in the use of words. 诚信在使用的话。 I've never taught a writing course since then without mentioning that phrase. 我从来不提这句话教从那时起一个写作课程。





But a writer needs something to be honest about. 但是，一个作家，需要的东西，说实话约。 If Yates had been a moderate drinker, I think, the things he had to be honest about would have been lesser things. 如果耶茨已适度饮酒者，我认为他诚实的东西，本来较轻的东西 。 His drinking, his disappointed life, saved his writing. 他喝酒，他失望的生命，救了他的写作。







MARTIN NAPARSTECK has published two novels, War Song and A Hero's Welcome , and more than 30 short stories. 马丁NAPARSTECK已出版了两部小说 ，战歌和英雄般的欢迎，和超过30个短篇小说。 He is the book reviewer for the Salt Lake Tribune and lives in Rochester, New York. 他是在盐湖城论坛报“ 和生活在罗切斯特，纽约书评。



COPYRIGHT 2001 University of Northern Iowa 版权所有2001年北爱荷华大学



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理查德耶茨追悼会的备注




by Kurt Vonnegut 库尔特冯内古特

Harvard Review , Fall 2003, Issue 25; pg. 哈佛评论“，2003年秋季，第25期; PG。 78. 78。



(This essay first appeared in Richard Yates: An American Writer , which Seymour Lawrence printed for Yates's memorial service.) （这篇论文最早出现在理查德耶茨：美国作家 ，西摩劳伦斯印耶茨的追悼会。）





The tunes you heard as you were arriving were all from the forties and fifties. 你听说你抵达的曲调，从四，五十年代。 Richard Yates knew the words, and I mean all the words, of so many of them. 理查德耶茨知道的话，我的意思是所有的话，这么多。 The happiest I ever saw him was when he was singing all the words, clever, witty, ironic, silly, sweet words, at a party. 我见过他最快乐的是，当他唱的话，聪明，机智，讽刺的是，傻，花言巧语，在一次聚会上 ，。 I asked our pianist here if he had read Richard Yates, or even heard of him. 我问我们的钢琴家在这里，如果他读理查德耶茨，甚至听说过他。 He confessed that he had not, but that after seeing a turnout as respectable as this one is, he was certainly going to remedy that situation. 据他交待，他还没有，但看到这个可敬的一个投票后，他肯定是要纠正这种情况。



We would not be here, and would have no superb life's work to celebrate, if it were not for a few publishers who felt honored by the opportunity to publish one of the purest American writers of this century, even though they knew they were going to lose a lot of money. 我们不会将有没有高超的生活的工作，以庆祝，如果它是不是一个谁感到荣幸的机会公布一篇的本世纪最纯净的美国作家之一少数出版商，即使他们知道他们要失去了很多钱。 Those who loved his work the most, and consequently lost the most money on him, were Seymour Lawrence and Helen Meyer. 那些爱他的工作，因此对他失去了最赚钱的，西摩劳伦斯和海伦迈耶 。 How do they feel now about the money they lost? 他们怎么感觉现在他们失去了钱？ They don't give a damn. 他们不给该死的。



I sat next to Gloria Vanderbilt at a party one time. 我坐在旁边一个党格洛丽亚范德比尔特一次。 We are not lovers, by the way. 我们不是恋人的方式。 Let me put that rumor to rest. 让我休息，谣言。 She asked me what I just asked our pianist. 她问我，我刚才问我们的钢琴家。 She had read a book which she simply adored, The Easter Parade . 她读了一本书，她简直崇拜， 复活节游行 。 I replied that Richard Yates was something of a friend of mine, and that he was presently living alone in Boston. 我回答说，理查德耶茨的东西，我的一个朋友，他目前独自居住在波士顿。 That good woman soon afterwards went to Boston and took him to lunch. 这好女人，不久去了波士顿，并把他共进午餐 。



Gloria Vanderbilt could tell the difference between good and bad writing. 格洛丽亚范德比尔特可以告诉好的和坏的写作之间的区别 。 Most people can't. 大多数人不能。 To be declared a good writer is an obscure honor nowadays, almost like being inducted into the Lacrosse Hall of Fame, which I believe is in Baltimore. 要成为一个好作家，是一个不起眼的荣誉，如今，几乎一样的长曲棍球名人堂，我相信这是在巴尔的摩引导。 Dick himself knew what a good writer he was, I am happy to say. 迪克自己知道，他是一个优秀的作家，我很高兴地说 。 He also knew the futility of being one, I think. 他也知道是一个徒劳的，我想 。 In one of his stories, I remember, and maybe one of you scholars here can tell me which story, he tells of a virtually unknown author who is much admired by critics because he had published seven novels in which they had not been able to discover a single flaw. 在他的故事，我记得，也许你的学者之一在这里可以告诉我的故事，他告诉一个几乎不为人所知的作家，谁是由评论家推崇，因为他已出版了7本小说中，他们一直未能发现一个单一的缺陷。 He was mocking himself, I think. 他嘲讽自己，我想。



When I made a journey, a forced march, through all his books in preparation for these obsequies, not only did I fail to detect so much as an injudiciously applied semicolon; I did not find even one paragraph which, if it were read to you today, would not wow you with its power, intelligence, and clarity. 当我通过他的书的旅程，急行军，在这些葬礼准备，不仅我无法检测到这么多injudiciously应用分号;我没有找到一个段落，如果是读给你听今天，不会WOW与它的力量，智力和清晰度。 It has been said even that Homer occasionally nodded. 甚至有人说，荷马偶尔点点头。 As nearly as I can determine, Richard Yates's concentration when he was writing was so extraordinary that he never did. 尽量接近我能确定，理查德耶茨的浓度，当他写，他从来没有如此非凡 。



He yearned to live as F. Scott Fitzgerald lived when Fitzgerald was rich and famous and young, to jump into the Plaza fountain with his clothes on and his pockets stuffed with paper money. 他渴望生活菲茨杰拉德生活时，菲茨杰拉德是富人和名人和年轻，跳跃与他的衣服到广场喷泉和他的口袋里塞满纸币。 That sort of thing. 诸如此类的事情。 As the photograph here demonstrates, he was as good looking as Fitzgerald. 照片显示，他是作为菲茨杰拉德一样好。 He was as tall and skinny too. 他又高又瘦了。



I submit to you that he was a more careful writer than Fitzgerald, and one who was even more cunningly observant. 我向你，他是一个比菲茨杰拉德更仔细的作家，和一个更狡猾水清 。 he is not nearly so famous as Fitzgerald because he did not work with a glamorous cast: Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Gay Paree. 他是不是接近著名的菲茨杰拉德，因为他没有工作，一个迷人的演员：格特鲁德斯泰因，海明威，毕加索，盖伊Paree 。 Unlike Fitzgerald and Hemingway, he had to endure the humiliating and dreary ordeal of being a foot soldier in combat day after day. 与菲茨杰拉德和海明威，他不得不忍受屈辱和悲凉的一个步兵战斗一天后一天的考验 。 Unlike them he did not and could not run away from middle-class life in America. 不同于他们，他没有和不能运行远离中产阶级在美国的生活 。 So that is what he wrote about. 所以这就是他写的。 And like another outsider, Tennessee Williams, he celebrated the utterly unglamorous gallantry of Americans who had not and could not amount to much. 像另一个局外人，田纳西威廉姆斯，他庆祝的美国人完全单调乏味的英勇谁没有，不能以多。



He and I became friends when we were teachers at the Writers' Workshop in Iowa City in the 1960s. 我和他成为朋友，当我们在20世纪60年代在爱荷华市作家工作坊的教师。 One of our colleagues was Nelson Algren, another world-class story-teller and outsider who died broke, but who was more famous than Dick because he had made love to Simone de Beauvoir. 我们的一位同事纳尔逊阿尔格雷，另一个世界级的故事，取款和局外人谁死爆发，但谁是超过迪克著名的，因为他爱西蒙波娃。 These things matter 这些东西很重要


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一个最终的冒失鬼，无可救药不知疲倦


(review of Blake Bailey's A Tragic Honesty ) （审查布雷克贝利的一个悲惨的诚信）





By Janet Maslin 到珍妮特马斯林

New York Times , June 26, 2003 2003年6月26 日，纽约时报，





The mere mention of Richard Yates's novel "Revolutionary Road" is a reference that "enacts a sort of cultural-literary handshake among its devotees," says Richard Ford, a Yates admirer. 理查德耶茨的小说“革命之路”色变，是一个参考，“制定一种文学的文化其信徒之间的握手，说：”理查德福特，耶茨的崇拜者。 Within this circle -- and now, it is to be hoped, for the benefit of a new and much larger one -- the arrival of Blake Bailey's great, perceptive, heartbreaking Yates biography is a landmark event. 在这个圈子-现在，它是一个新的和更大的利益，希望-布雷克贝利的伟大，领悟力，令人心碎的耶茨传记的到来是一个具有里程碑意义的事件 。 At this late date (Yates died in 1992), it is a terrifically moving one as well. 在这么晚的日期（耶茨在1992年去世），这是一个异常的一个 。



"A Tragic Honesty," marred only by its drab title, is wrenching not just for the sheer Sisyphean torment of Yates's experience but also for the miracle of his artistic tenacity in the face of unimaginable odds. “一个悲惨的诚信，”诋毁其单调的标题，不只是纯粹的耶茨的经验徒劳无益的折磨，但也为他在面对难以想象的赔率艺术坚韧的奇迹痛苦。 During his legendarily messy lifetime, Yates racked up rejection letters and never once wrote a story deemed acceptable by The New Yorker, however hard he tried. 耶茨在他的一生传奇凌乱中，费尽了拒绝信，从来没有一次写一个故事视为接受“纽约客”，不过硬，他试图。 Upon the publication of his short story collection "Liars in Love," he arrived to give a reading in Boston. 当他的短篇小说集出版的“恋爱中的说谎者”，他抵达给在波士顿的阅读 。 Not one listener showed up. 没有一个监听器出现了。



"He sat in the silent lecture hall while his two sponsors gazed at their watches," Mr. Bailey reports. “他在沉默演讲厅中坐，而他的两个提案国凝视着自己的手表，”贝利先生的报告。 "Finally Yates suggested they adjourn to a bar. He didn't seem particularly surprised." “最后耶茨建议休会，酒吧，他似乎并不感到特别惊讶。”



So the most difficult decision for a Yates biographer is to decide how much of this misery warrants repeating. 因此，为耶茨的传记中最艰难的决定，决定多少这种痛苦需要重复。 With access to Yates's wives, friends, daughters and colleagues, to his manuscripts and correspondence, and to much evidence of how Yates's real experiences were transmuted into keenly autobiographical fiction, Mr. Bailey chooses a warts-and-more-warts version. 贝利先生访问耶茨的妻子，朋友，女儿和他的同事，他的手稿和书信，耶茨的真实经验如何蜕变成敏锐的自传体小说的大量证据，选择一个疣和疣的版本。 He justifies his approach with astute and admiring criticism of Yates's accomplishments, not to mention the validation of everyone Yates knew. 他与精明和慕名而来的批评耶茨的成就证明他的做法，更何况耶茨知道了大家的验证 。



Amazingly, at the mere midpoint of this transfixingly bleak account, Yates has already been through a bruising childhood, heavy alcoholism, impaired health (he developed tuberculosis at 24), mind-numbing employment in the corporate world (extolling Remington Rand's products in "chatty Babbittese for the layman," Mr. Bailey says), the failed suburban marriage immortalized in "Revolutionary Road" and a couple of public breakdowns. 令人惊讶的是，在此transfixingly暗淡帐户仅仅中点，耶茨已通过一场激烈的童年，酗酒沉重，受损的健康（他开发的24结核），在企业界麻痹就业（歌颂“饶舌雷明顿兰德的产品Babbittese外行，“贝利先生说），郊区婚姻失败中永生”革命之路“和公众故障的情侣 。 Yet the book still has 300 pages to go. 然而，这本书仍然有300多页去。 How much worse can it get? 能差多少？ Throughout Yates's life, anyone around him was dogged by that question. 整个耶茨的生活，他周围的人被这个问题困扰 。



"If the prerequisite of any great writer's life is an unhappy childhood, then Richard Yates was especially blessed," Mr. Bailey begins. “如果任何伟大的作家的生活的前提是一个不幸的童年，然后理查德耶茨特别祝福，”贝利先生开始 。 No wonder: "Yates mentions the odors of mildew and cat droppings and plasticene to evoke the basic bouquet of his childhood." 难怪：“耶茨提到的霉变和猫的粪便气味和plasticene基本花束，以唤起人们对他的童年。 “ He was 3 when his parents divorced, and was subsequently overwhelmed by his mother, a would-be sculptor who used her little son as a nude faunlet model and all-purpose foil. 他是3时，他的父母离婚了，后来由他的母亲不堪重负，一个想成为雕塑家谁用她的小儿子，作为一个裸体faunlet模型和所有的目的箔。 Nicknamed Dookie in life (and called Pookie in the novel "The Easter Parade," with Yates's typical near-appropriation of real names and events), she became the antithesis of all he hated about alcoholic squalor and middlebrow artistic striving. 绰号的生活Dookie（，并呼吁在小说“复活节游行”，耶茨的典型的真实姓名和事件近拨款Pookie），她成为所有的对立面，他对酒精肮脏和中庸的艺术努力恨。



Born in 1926, Yates spent part of the 1930's in Scarborough-on-Hudson, NY, living as a tenant on the estate of Frank A. Vanderlip, a patron who encouraged Dookie's artistic efforts before being forced to evict her. 耶茨出生于1926年，花费在士嘉堡-哈德森，NY 1930年的一部分，作为弗兰克A. Vanderlip，鼓励Dookie被迫赶走她之前的艺术努力的靠山地产的租户居住。 In the 1950's the same quarters were occupied by John Cheever, an author with whom Yates shared literary as well as geographical terrain. 在1950年的同一宿舍约翰奇弗，作者耶茨与谁共享文学以及地理地形占领。



"Revolutionary Road" (which risked being called "Losers," "Nectar in a Sieve," "The Fiasco" and "The Big Nothing" before finally taking its title from a Scarborough street sign) embodied mid-50's suburban malaise but its pitiless vision precluded popularity. “革命路”（其中冒着被称为“失败者”，“筛子花蜜，”“的惨败”和“的大没有”终于到从一个士嘉堡街道签署的标题前）体现了50年代中期郊区萎靡不振，但其无情视力排除普及。 "To repeat the obvious," Mr. Bailey points out, "most people don't like reading about, much less identifying with, mediocre people who evade the truth until it rolls over them." “要重复显而易见的，”贝利先生指出，“大多数人不喜欢阅读有关，更不认同，平庸的人逃避真相，直到他们卷。 “ Thus the New Yorker would review this great American novel only in brief, dismissing its "meaningless characters leading meaningless lives." 因此，“纽约客”将审查这只是在简短的伟大的美国小说，驳回其“龙头毫无意义的生活的无意义的字符。“



"I just plain can't afford to be as doomed as the people I wrote about," Yates observed at the time while contemplating the fate of his foremost role model, F. Scott Fitzgerald. “我只是普通的不能像我写的人注定，”耶茨的时间观察，同时考虑对他最重要的示范作用，菲茨杰拉德的命运。 Flaubert was another of his heroes, sparking a determinism that "was a matter of knowing his characters well enough to know their fates, and making the reader see this too," Mr. Bailey says. 福楼拜是他的另一个英雄，引发了决定论认为，“是一个知道他的字符不够好，知道自己的命运，让读者看到这太问题，”贝利先生说。 "Yates reveals the pattern of his characters' mistakes without manipulating their fates; he's off paring his nails, so to speak, while the characters behave as they must." “耶茨揭示了他的字符”错误的格局没有操纵自己的命运，他的断削他的指甲，可以这么说，而人物的行为，因为他们必须 。“


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