A Little Life

An architect, painter actor and lawyer move to New York to carve out incredibly successful lives. As the years pass the nature if their friendship evolves and changes from the early struggles post graduation as 20 somethings in New York as waiters, killing hours behind a desk or barely scraping by in a borrowed loft. And here, Yanagihara, an Asian American woman, nails the familiar New York story of countless upper class, white, hipster male writers.

The men go on to enjoy lofty critical success in their lives, each at the top of their game. But then she veers from this familiar trajectory and focuses on the enigmatic Jude. We are slowly opened to his wrenching past and how it informs his present. The hyenas of his painful history always circling and closing in. This is a brick of a book and filled with triggering, hard to read episodes.

It's about the hidden pain each of us nurture and the insufficiencies of language, of kindness, or faith to bridge that gap and the beauty to be found in those that try. This thing is a gut punch.