A little life, by Hanya Yanagihara

Is anything but a little book at 720 dense pages and weighing in at 2.3 pounds.  In addition to the sheer bulk of the book, the emotional impact of the novel is hard to handle.   It follows the friendship of four men who meet in college through several decades – the time period, although contemporary, is not moored by references to current events that would allow the reader to place it exactly.  Similarly, although the reader comes to know all four men intimately, none of them are described in detail.  Even after a hundred or more pages, I was uncertain as to their ethnicity and appearance, which leaves one to concentrate more on their inner lives and their relationships.   But this vagueness does not mean that the characters are meant to be representative types, each is a fully drawn individual.  JB becomes a prominent visual artist; Malcolm, an architect; Willem, a sought-after actor; and Jude, the center of the book, a talented lawyer who ends up defending corporations.  The three others are protective of Jude, who walks with difficulty after what he describes as “an automobile accident.” He is reticent about other events in his early years and seems to have no family.  Jude’s story is slowly revealed in all its pain and horror.  His coping mechanism, injuring himself by cutting, becomes more and more understandable.  I found the book both hard to put down and difficult to continue reading.   Recommended with reservations – it is an upsetting novel.  720 pp.