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1-Page Summary of Revolutionary Road
Overall Summary
The novel begins with a play that April Wheeler, an amateur actress, is performing in. It’s clear to everyone that the play will be unsuccessful because of its poor quality. However, April does well for most of the performance until she becomes embarrassed and flustered by her failure on stage. Her husband Frank goes over to comfort her but they end up arguing about whether or not they should go out for drinks after the show with their friends Shep and Milly Campbell. They get into an argument so loud it wakes up their neighbors and ends when Frank punches his hand against the car’s roof in anger at his wife. He injures himself and spends the night on the couch while April sleeps alone in bed.
The next day, Frank wakes up with a hangover. He is angry at April and doesn’t want to speak to her. Frank remembers how his father disapproved of him for not being good at working with his hands like he was supposed to be doing as the man of the house. This memory makes him feel worse about himself than before and he gets very upset when Michael steps in one spot where he’s digging too deeply for a tree root and then spanks him because it reminds him so much of what happened between himself and his own father Earl years ago when they were building something together that involved some kind of hole or trench that they had dug into the ground together while working on something else entirely.
The next evening, Shep and Milly Campbell come over to the Wheelers’ house for cocktails. The two couples usually enjoy each other’s company but now there is some awkwardness between them. Milly Campbell tells the group some gossip about Helen Givings, who has a son in a mental institution. Frank holds forth on complacency of their community and everyone looks embarrassed except for him because he expects that from others.
The next day, Frank’s thirtieth birthday, he feels depressed. He goes to work at Knox Business Machines as a Sales Promotion Manager and feels better once he puts his plan in motion to seduce Maureen Grube, the secretary. When Frank gets home that night, April surprises him with a warm reception. She has prepared dinner for him and says she has something important to tell him. According to April, they should move to Europe where Frank can figure out what he wants from life and she will work as a secretary so they can live off her salary while supporting them both financially until then. She says that when she got pregnant with Jennifer and wanted an abortion because of how young they were at the time; however, according to her husband it was too late because he had already assumed all responsibility for their lives by promising not letting anything happen between them or their child which would make things worse than before even if it meant giving up on finding himself or his true calling in life which is why she now wants to help him find his true calling by supporting him financially until then by working as a secretary since it is what makes her happy but first needs his permission before going ahead with any of this which means agreeing with everything said so far otherwise there won’t be any more discussion about this subject henceforth thus meaning no more talk about moving anywhere else nor having another baby despite being ready mentally/physically/emotionally etc…
The Wheelers are in harmony with each other for a few weeks. Frank tells Maureen that they shouldn’t have sex again, and he quickly solves a problem at work by writing a brochure for the sales conference. The couple spends long hours talking about their plans, excluding everyone else, even their children. It’s clear to Frank that he is nervous about moving to Europe because April is preparing so quickly; she assumes they’ll move to Paris because of his mistaken impression that he learned French during World War II.
