A Special Providence
  • Published: 15 March 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099518631
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $32.99
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A Special Providence

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Aug 2011
Paperback
15 Mar 2008
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A moving, ironic and often heart breaking exploration of post-war America by the author of Revolutionary Road

Bobby is eighteen and lost on the battlefields of Europe, stumbling his way through World War II. He has turned out to be the heroic soldier he imagined and his experience of battle principally involves fear and confusion. Back home, his mother Alice puts all her hopes in her son, and dreams of his return and starting a new life for them both.

Richard Yates's novel is both tender and ironic as he follows Bobby's adventures and disasters and reflects on the intense but complicated bond between mother and son.
  • Published: 15 March 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099518631
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

About the author

Richard Yates

Richard Yates was born in 1926 in New York and lived in California. His prize-winning stories began to appear in 1953 and his first novel, Revolutionary Road, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1961. He is the author of eight other works, including the novels A Good School, The Easter Parade, and Disturbing the Peace, and two collections of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. He died in 1992.

Also by Richard Yates

Revolutionary Road, The Easter Parade, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
Disturbing the Peace
The Collected Stories of Richard Yates
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
Liars in Love
The Easter Parade
A Good School
See all

Praise for A Special Providence

A beautiful book

Joan Didion

Wonderful

Andre Dubus

So quotidian, so possible, so plausible, that it is more terrifying to read...than to read of the disasters and massacres of kings

Harper's

Every good writer I know acknowledges Yates as a master

Kurt Vonnegut

Yates's trademark blackness does not seem out of place or excessive... the skilful sketches of Prentice's colleagues bring an element of humanity to a sordid and inhumane topic

Leyla Sanai, www.rocksbackpagesblogs.com