“Although it is a cliche to claim that creativity is connected to dour moods and a grey outlook on life, all the best stuff is written by some grim-faced pencil chewer with a heart pumped by angst. Richard Yates, whose novel Revolutionary Road is about to win an Oscar, has written seven novels and two collections of short stories, each more hopelessly miserable than the last. After years of chronicling the impossibility of his toothless, drunken mother, his experiences in the second world war, his TB and divorces, Yates finally rounds things off in Disturbing the Peace by fictionalising how a cocktail of alcoholism and psychotropic drugs had him take off his clothes and wander the streets of LA, giving all his money to beggars and prostitutes, convinced that he was Jesus. It is relentless – but so readable.”

From The Guardian