A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Trigger Warnings: This book discusses topics of substance abuse, self-harm, and graphic depictions of physical and sexual violence.
I don’t think there’s a spirit that has been invented yet that could invoke enough pain to match the utter turmoil that Yanagihara takes readers on in A Little Life. Maybe drinking an entire bottle of tequila in one night would come close (but please don’t try it).
A Dark Manhattan certainly seems fitting enough since the story follows four protagonists - Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and JB - from their initial meeting at college through their careers, friendships, and relationships based in New York City.
It’s also a bitter drink that will definitely sting a little at first. But unlike our Dark Manhattan, which is just the right amount of bitter, A Little Life hurts a little too much going down. At times the unrelenting trauma felt overwhelming to me, almost beyond what I could believe in a fictional narrative. I eventually started knocking on wood anytime I found myself wondering how Jude’s life could get any worse because, trust me, it always does. But the Manhattan is a classic drink and this is a classically structured chronological narrative, just with darker undertones.
I have to be honest here; I ultimately finished this book with some major qualms. Most notably, the LGBTQ+ characters or relationships in this story were disproportionately portrayed as difficult, painful, or outright violent in my opinion. Not that they aren’t in real life, they certainly can be - but in the same way that heteronormative relationships can be. The LGBTQ+ centered storylines in A Little Life take these relationships out of those realistic norms and focus heavily on the pain the respective partners bear onto each other. This was made obvious to me in the way we see Malcolm and his wife’s happy family, or Harold and Julia’s picturesque way of life in Boston, juxtaposed to the LGBTQ+ relationships wracked with hardship over the decades in this story.
But now that I’ve said my piece on what didn’t land for me with this book, let’s focus on what A Little Life does right. The sweet cherry on top, if you will. Yanagihara is undoubtedly an amazing writer who brings readers right into the action of her stories. The way she writes dialogue is so realistic that I felt as if I were part of our protagonists’ conversations, or maybe just eavesdropping on them from across the room. The depictions of complex emotions associated with PTSD are also done well in my opinion (although it’s worth mentioning that I am not a mental health expert nor have I experienced PTSD). Even so, she weaves incredibly complex sets of emotions into each character, allowing us to feel the push-and-pull of clashing thoughts and feelings along with the four men.
Overall, much like a Dark Manhattan, it’s not a drink—or a read—for everyone. While the accounts of these four friends can be gratuitously difficult at times, the overall writing is beautiful and engaging.
