Book Review: Easter Parade by Richard Yates - Page 2

Note how Yates does not tell the readers what exactly went on during their fight. We know it went on for a while, that anger was involved, but what they said back and forth is not important, for we’re able to figure that out for ourselves. Also note how this technique breaks all the cookie-cutter MFA workshop 101 rules of “show don’t tell.” Yates proves that telling is just fine if the narrator is telling well. Also, what that narrator chooses to tell and does not choose to tell is in itself an act of showing. Yet it is likely that were this novel to cross the desk of some bubblehead literary agent, he or she would reject it because it does not play to the lowest common denominator and nor does it resemble the conventional crap they’d be interested in.

Easter Parade begins with the story of two sisters, Sarah and Emily. Their mother and father are divorced, and soon the father dies. The mother is a bit nutty, but funny, and Emily resents her sister’s added closeness to their father. The story becomes primarily Emily’s, and much of the book involves her dating a string of losers. But man, does Yates know how to craft losers well. Each one is an individual and there isn’t anything particularly special about any of them, yet you remember them. The book also deals with a number of deaths — notably the father’s, the mother’s and also Emily’s sister Sarah.

Yet Yates does not set the scenes up as grand moments, they’re actually quite average, as how they would be in real life. No grand sobbing moments, no melodrama, it just is. Throughout the book, Emily is trying to find someone to connect to, yet she still finds herself alone. And by the tale’s end, this fact hasn’t really changed.

Emily is also a flawed character, (as all Yates’ characters are) yet readers will sympathize with her. When she learns that Sarah’s husband is regularly beating her, for example, Emily is reluctant to allow Sarah to move in with her because she does not want to be inconvenienced. Emily is relieved when Sarah changes her mind and decides to stay with her husband, yet the guilt of this will live on in her, since Sarah eventually dies and suspicions about her husband having a hand in it begin to surface later on.

Yates also crafts a well developed dynamic between the two sisters, for when they are young, Sarah, as the older sister, takes on the more dominant role between them. She seems to have her act together, in other words. But as they age, their roles reverse, and Emily is actually the one with more self-awareness and independence. By the end of the novel, Sarah comes across almost as a helpless child. Watching the dynamic shift between them, subtly over pages, is part of the enjoyment.

Article Author: Jessica Schneider

Jessica Schneider is the Austin Cultural Events Examiner for Examiner.com. She writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer and has worked as the book editor of Monsters & Critics as well as being a co-founder of www.Cosmoetica.com

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