As the book begins, they've moved to New York to make their fortune, and over the next 700 pages - yes, 700 - we watch them rise, lose their bearings, fall in love, slide into squabbles and wrestle with life's inevitable tragedies.īesides, Jude's condition is Yanagihara's way of exploring larger issues. There's the timorous would-be architect, Malcolm, born of a wealthy, mixed-race family and the handsome, lame Jude, a brilliant attorney addicted to cutting himself. There's the kindhearted actor, Willem, and the self-centered artist, JB, of Haitian stock. The book follows three decades in the life of four friends from a posh college. As I was reading, I literally dreamed about it every night. This new book is long, page-turny, deeply moving, sometimes excessive, but always packed with the weight of a genuine experience. We just love tales about healing.īut how far should we trust them? That's one of the many questions raised by A Little Life, a new novel by Hanya Yanagihara, whose acclaimed debut, The People in the Trees, came from seemingly nowhere 18 months ago. How?Īmerica is hooked on stories of redemption and rebirth, be it Cheryl Strayed rediscovering herself by hiking the Pacific Trail or the late David Carr pulling himself out of the crack-house and into The New York Times.

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A little life book