Richard Yates' book Easter Parade shows that life can never be the same after a family has failed. Yates details the lives of two daughters, Sarah Wilson and Emily Grimes, as they flail through life uncertain of anything clinging to the wrong people and vice addictions.

Yates published this book to argue the ideals of the time. Many women were leaving their husbands and divorce was on the rise. Women were in a movement for independence during the early 1970's in America. Easter Parade is very informative of what can happen when a failed marriage occurs and the offspring are forced to cope with the divorce. Not only is Yates condemning divorce but he is pointing at vices that people cling to, such as sex and alcohol, as bad objects to let rule your life.

Throughout the first two hundred and twenty-eight pages of Easter Parade there seems...