"

Despite this apparent contempt, Frank does in fact desperately want to fit in with the happy crowd he suggests he otherwise despises, but April recognizes his hypocrisy as well as her own miserable lot in suburbia and takes her own life as a consequence. After April commits suicide, Frank's frantic reaction is not unlike the running part of the trip taken by Ned Merrill to reach a home that was no longer there, but the suburbia described by Yates is no place for such tragies. In this regard, Yates portrays suburbia as a hiding place from the real world that exists outside, all plastic and tinsel with little real substance:

The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy. Even at night, as if on purpose, the development held no looming shadows and no gaunt silhouettes. It was invincibly cheerful, a toyland of white and pastel...
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