While the American Cold War policies o f the 1950s were being spirited abroad in the form of a socio-political impasse between the United States and the Soviet Union,1 domestic ideologies of paranoia, propaganda, surveillance-as well as the widespread infringement of civil liberties-produced what Alan Nadel calls a "na tional narrative" o f containment in all social, economic, and spatial facets o f the country (17). Such narratives, formed via political and cultural proclamations and societal expectations, would guarantee that American superiority was maintained in the popular imagination and that the security and dominance o f the nation's economic interests and technological ambitions would remain unfettered. Richard Yates's widely acclaimed Revolutionary Road produces a crystalline snapshot of this new Cold War national order, depicting the Gl-tumed-suburbanite and his awkward negotiation in the mid-1950s social terrain.2 Yates's image o f the postwar nation is one in which a new enemy (the Communists) fuels the paranoia and passion for American conformity and technological advancement. In this new campaign by the cold warriors, the societal attributes o f compliance and progress would be battled domestically in the new suburban trenches. Revolutionary Road denotes a moment in American society when the United States was redesigning itself into a "new and improved" culture based upon mate rial consumption o f leisure products and lifestyle amenities. Accordingly, many postwar Americans quickly assumed this new collective identity while unconsciously Michael P. Moreno is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University o f Califomia-Riverside. His areas o f interest include urban and suburban studies, American literature, spatial theory, and architecture.
A prolific writer from the gay and Chicano communities, John Rechy has redefined the American narrative of the late twentieth century by crossing literary genres and challenging cultural perceptions. His many novels, which often blur autobiography with fiction, possess a cinematic quality that reveals the underside of urban spaces and the search for one's identity. Since the late 1950s, Rechy has actively transformed and articulated the way outsiders, particularly homosexuals, have been perceived throughout the United States.
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