Hey blog readers, book lovers, and thinkers! Major! Trigger! Warning! Today, I’d like to share with you a very long book that I immersed myself in for three weeks straight. At 720 pages, this was an investment. Was it worth it? I debated myself for a long time about whether I should write about this book on the blog. I finally decided that this novel (for yes it’s a novel) is indeed great. And worthy of your time. But I want you to know that this determination was a close call and not one I made lightly.

But I must warn you upfront: Major! Trigger! Warning! For the novel, not this blog post. The novel takes on some of the most horrific subjects imaginable: child sexual abuse, self-harm, suicidality. Perhaps you’re a person who has read about these topics before, and perhaps this was uncomfortable for you, but not disturbing to the point that it disrupted your ability to function during your day. You may find that this book presents an altogether different experience.

It’s not just that the topics of child sexual abuse, self-harm, and suicidality appear in the novel. It’s that all three of these are major themes that pervade nearly every scene in the book; and moreover they are present to a more extreme degree than almost any story I’ve ever read; and moreover the writing style of the book is so smooth and immersive that you feel like you are in the same world, same room, as the characters; and moreover, this goes on for three weeks or however long it takes you to read a 720-page novel.

Reading the novel A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, nearly destroyed me, but, somewhat perversely, I recommend it to you. Its title perfectly describes what it’s about. One little life. With its up and downs. Indeed, there are incredible ups that last for pages and pages, in addition to horrific downs that also last for pages and pages. The main protagonist’s little life truly encapsulates the best and worst aspects of what it means to be human.

Despite everything I wrote above, this novel is primarily about the powers and limits of friendship, family, and romantic love. It’s about people whose relationships to each other become so mixed and blended that it’s beautiful and toxic all at once. This novel is also about courage and whether or not it’s a moral imperative to have it. Is life worth living? What is courage? How do you face down fears that you are nothing, when you feel in your soul that you are nothing? What is friendship, family, and love? Are these things worth destroying a career over?

Here’s a taste of A Little Life’s preoccupation with friendship and companionship:

“Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? What wasn’t it even better?”

But then a few pages later, the same character, referring to the same companion, admits to himself that it’s frustrating that his friend never shares anything about his past:

“This isn’t fair, he would think in those moments. This isn’t friendship. It’s something, but it’s not friendship. He felt he had been hustled into a game of complicity, one he never intended to play.”

A Little Life is almost an old book at this point. This blog is about the best modern books; I define “modern” as within the past ten years. When A Little Life was published, ten years ago, it received universal critical acclaim. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and Man Booker Prize. The writing style is like a very gently moving train. No sentence stands out as particularly beautiful or unique; it’s the accumulation of sentences that creates the beauty and uniqueness.

One stylistically innovative aspect of the novel is how characters are referred to. One or two principal characters are referred to only as “he” or “him” in chapters featuring that character, as if stating their name would be too intrusive for their fragile sensibilities. Another principal character, who is not the protagonist of the novel, receives the occasional distinction of a first-person narrative (he narrates as “I” and “me”) and refers to a “you” who is also not the protagonist. It’s a surprise to find, within the flow of a third-person-narrated novel, a first-person-narrated chapter or two. By the end, the reason for this becomes clear.

I usually ask you, my blog reader, a question at the end of a blog post. But my biggest question today is for the author of this novel, Hanya Yanagihara. To her I say (and I hope this is not too rude or impertinent a question, but I genuinely feel this question in my heart, and I felt this question as I was reading):

Are you okay?

I suspect she is. First of all, the human imagination is immense, and just because you can write convincingly doesn’t mean you personally experienced all the events, thoughts, and emotions described. Secondly, while the protagonist of A Little Life is stubbornly and tragically resistant to sharing his story or communicating his innermost thoughts and feelings, Yanagihara is a storyteller. And I know from experience that storytelling about the more tragic aspects of being human is cathartic.

Reading about it is, too. And so I recommend A Little Life to you. A blessing and a prayer to who all who have the courage and strength to make it through this one.

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