I had read [ Flaubert's Madame Bovary ] before but hadn't studied it the way I'd studied Gatsby and other books; now it seemed ideally suited to serv… - Richard Yates

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I had read [ Flaubert's Madame Bovary ] before but hadn't studied it the way I'd studied Gatsby and other books; now it seemed ideally suited to serve as a guide, if not a model, for the novel that was taking shape in my mind. I wanted that kind of balance and quiet resonance on every page, that kind of foreboding mixed with comedy, that kind of inexorable destiny in the heart of a lonely, romantic girl. And all of it, of course, would have to be done with an F. Scott Fitzgerald kind of freshness and grace.