“One of the great concerns for fiction in general is the fundamental vulnerability of humans,” adding that children represent the most vulnerable group of all.īut while Jude’s trauma may give the book its drama, at its heart A Little Life is a study of friendship, a relationship that “can never really be codified,” says Yanagihara. “I’m interested in how people compensate for some great harm when they were young,” she explains. (This interviewer read one scene peeking out between her fingers, which was a first.)Ĭhild abuse is tricky to handle in fiction, but Yanagihara seems drawn to exploring the subject, which was also an element of The People in the Trees. “A friend of mine called it sort of an emotional horror story in a way, and I guess it is,” she admits.
Yanagihara fully commits to bringing readers all the way into her characters’ lives-the dark spots as well as the bright-with a visceral realism. The reader does indeed feel helpless at times in the face of the cruelties that Jude endured. “One of the themes of the book is this hope that we all live with: that one other person can save us-and the realization that we really can’t be saved, that the idea of being saved itself is sort of a false conceit,” Yanagihara says, citing the “limits of what any one person can do for someone else.” “One of the themes of the book is this hope that we all live with: that one other person can save us-and the realization that we really can’t be saved, that the idea of being saved itself is sort of a false conceit. While his entire history doesn’t become clear until well into the book, readers will realize early on that it’s not something to be easily overcome-giving a story that might otherwise be essentially a domestic one serious emotional heft, as well as a sharper, more dangerous edge. But it soon becomes clear that the biggest conflict in A Little Life is Jude’s struggle with his past demons, which include abandonment and abuse.
#A LITTLE LIFE BARNES AND NOBLE PROFESSIONAL#
Two go into professional careers-Jude becomes a lawyer and Malcolm, an architect-while JB and Willem pursue art and acting, respectively. Like any friend group, the foursome faces ups and downs: romantic disappointments, career successes, drug addictions. They’ve known each other since high school and college, and I’ve always admired their dynamic and how hard they work at staying friends.” “My very best friend, to whom the book is dedicated, has a large group of friends who I call the herd of cats. “I was very drawn to the idea of a group of friends,” Yanagihara explains. As the stories of the four main characters-college roommates Willem, Jude, Malcolm and JB-unfurl over three decades, Yanagihara deftly fills in the separate pasts that have shaped their shared present.
That’s an advantage the reader of this often-surprising literary tour de force won’t have. But I knew where it was going the whole way.” “I worked on it very steadily, three hours a day Monday through Thursday and six hours a day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She’d been working on that novel-which weighs a scientist’s dubious morals against the good his research has accomplished-“for maybe 16 years,” she says during a call to her office in New York City.Īll 700-plus pages of A Little Life, on the other hand, were written in just 18 months, after five years of mental planning. The Condé Nast Travel editor, who grew up in Honolulu, made her fiction debut in 2013 with the publication of The People in the Trees. A Little Life may be the best book you read this year it certainly will be the most heartbreaking. Hanya Yanagihara’s transcendent second novel is much more than its plot summary suggests. If you think you’ve read the story of four friends trying to make it in New York City already, think again.
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