I’ve reread quite a few novels this year (chasing dragons and rabbits of potential stories), but it wasn’t until Benjamin Lytal’s article, “Reconsiderations: Richard Yates’s ‘Revolutionary Road’ ” that I considered revisiting this brilliant work.

Lytal gets it right when he claims:

“Revolutionary Road” is the converse of “On the Road” (1957); it tells the more likely story, of the legions who wanted to hit the road but were content, ultimately, to stay at home and simmer.

What simmers, of course, must eventually boil.