I received Hanya Yanagihara's second novel , A Little Life (Doubleday), with one warning: "It's heavy ." I immediately understood that the meaning was physical—the book is 720 pages— —but I also have a feeling that this warning goes beyond the literal meaning. I am right. Yanagihara's second work - which, I'll tell you right up front, doesn't suffer from the famous second novel slump - takes us through a territory rich in emotion and rich in subtlety. But once you get in the author's hands, you'll love every page of the world she builds.
"Tiny Life" centers on four young people living in New York City. This topic seems worth passing—until you start reading. Yanagihara makes her characters so real that you feel sure you know them. We don't see these men wandering around town trying to get laid, or getting drunk and watching football matches. We don’t see them fitting into the stereotype of college playboy culture.
Instead, "Tiny Lives" explores exactly what the title suggests - the bits and pieces of the tiny lives of four characters who, when viewed up close, are so huge, living together in college and growing up over the course of a few years. The friendship remains ten years later.
William was born to Swedish immigrants and worked as a farm laborer. His brother was so severely disabled that he could never speak or communicate with William, and his parents died shortly after his brother's death. William's emotional intelligence is amazing and beautiful.
We see Malcolm as an only child, privileged, with wealthy and successful parents, but always facing an identity crisis. Malcolm was never black enough for his black friends (his mother was white), but remained a token black man in other white circles.
JB is an artist who has faith in our special snowflake generation that he will do well, but who gets impatient and angry when he doesn't. As a black man and a gay man, JB spent years trying to use his art to make a point, even though even he wasn't sure what that point was.
The novel really revolves around Jude St. Francis. Jude has a dark past, which is slowly revealed in fragmented fragments throughout the novel. Jude suffered severe, repeated, and horrific abuse as a child and adolescent and is the most complex character I have encountered in literature in a long time. He is constantly in awe and humbled by the fact that he was lucky enough to go to college, make friends, and succeed—something that will be very familiar to many readers. His body is covered with old and new scars, both physical and emotional, and he thinks he's grotesque, even though everyone he loves thinks he's the most beautiful person they've ever seen.
"Little Lives" explores exactly what the title suggests - the bits and pieces of four characters' small lives that seem so large when viewed up close.
We followed these men through their 20s, 30s, 40s and early 50s. They grow up and figure things out; they get in and out of relationships, jobs, successes and failures. Because they are so alive on the page, they are a joy to live with. But because they are also very self-conscious, often experiencing confusion, self-loathing, and anxiety, it can also be a form of torture. Our own experiences allow us to continually recognize ourselves in them and connect us to the text. For example, about a terrible relationship that should never have continued:
Miraculously, however, they continued after all... It was like something out of a fairy tale: a woman living on the edge of a dark forest heard a knock on the door and opened the door of her cabin. Even though it was only for a moment, and even though she didn't see anyone, in those few seconds dozens of demons and ghosts had slipped past her and into her house, and she could never escape them, ever. That's how it feels sometimes. Is this true for everyone else? He didn't know; he didn't dare ask.
In a conversation between Slate ’s authors and editors, Yanagihara said:
Everything in this book is a bit exaggerated: there's horror, of course, but there's also love. I wanted it to achieve a level of authenticity by playing with the conventions of fairy tales and then derailing those conventions. I wanted the experience of reading it to feel immersive and a little otherworldly, without giving the reader too much context to stabilize their emotions.
She is right. The abuse Jude endures and the success his friends achieve over the course of the novel's thirty years is almost mind-boggling and unbelievable, but that doesn't matter. As these characters each get lucky and start to succeed, you've seen them slog through so many odds that you feel genuinely excited to be with them.
We recognize ourselves in them again and again.
Yanagihara’s novel is an incredible feat. It’s been a long time since I cried myself to sleep with a book in my arms. "A Little Life" is such a book.
Image: Sam Levy
