“ He wanted to rush outdoors and make some dramatic atonement - smash his fist against a tree or run for miles, leaping stone walls, until he fell exhausted in a morass of mud and brambles. Instead he shut his eyes and reached out and drew her close against him, crushing her cocktail apron in a desperate embrace, letting all his torment dissolve in pressing and stroking the inward curve of her back while he urged his groaning, muttering mouth into her throat. “Oh, my lovely,” he said. “Oh, my lovely girl.
— Excerpt from “Revolutionary Road,” Richard Yates
