"A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara is no little book. But tucked between each thin page is a striking story about four men as they navigate through lost jobs, pretentious social circles, and crappy apartments around New York. The real star of the show, or book, as you will, is a man named Jude St. Francis.
Almost immediately, Yanagihara reveals the upbringing and backstories of the three other men in the story. Willem, JB, and Malcolm each have different childhoods, manifesting in each man’s mentality and personality. And this connection is what is most important to note, because for Jude St. Francis, it is his childhood that has made the biggest difference in shaping who he is.
Jude’s history is revealed to the reader in snapshots during the course of the novel. As we follow Jude through his adulthood, situations come up and Yanagihara flashes back to Jude’s childhood. Through these glimpses into Jude as a young child, we begin to understand Jude’s cripplingly low self-esteem and vulnerability.
Yanagihara writes a novel that somehow translates the complex world of psychological hardship and mental issues into a narrative that anyone can understand. Best of all, Yanagihara does not only focus on Jude, but also gives proper voice to those around Jude, like Willem, JB, and Malcolm. These three men (among other characters that emerge in the text) are the backbone of Jude’s life. Without them and their support, I cannot help but think that Jude’s life would have been much shorter. Yanagihara does an excellent job at portraying the compassion, and sadly, the guilt, that people feel when a close companion is hurting, either from a mental or physical disability. This aspect of the text really drew me in, because it is uncommon to find an author that does an accurate job portraying the feelings and mentality of those watching others suffer from mental illness.
One of the hardest parts about severe depression, which Jude suffers from, is how he perceives those around him. Through Jude’s lens we see what it is like to feel as if every action you do is a burden upon someone else, and how unrealistic it is for others to expect him to just “get over it," a phrase that we often hear nowadays regarding mental illnesses. And what I appreciate most about Yanagihara is that she does not shy away from providing vivid details of gruesome and frankly hard to read scenes.
Yanagihara writes with such clarity and vivid descriptors, that it is easy to get lost in the narrative, an occurrence that has not happened to me in a long time. Without giving too much away, one of my favorite images from the book is when Yanagihara is describing a porch, in which the light washes over the scene like honey. Honey. For some reason, this picture that Yanagihara painted has stuck with me, days and weeks after encountering the passage. I have never heard honey used to describe a light, and yet, I know exactly the kind of light that Yanagihara wishes to describe. Descriptions like these keep me reading. Despite how dark this text is at times, and how sad it makes me feel for the characters, Yanagihara writes with such beauty and uniqueness that it leaves me wanting more.
Few books have left me thinking this much after reading. But I think, for Yanagihara’s text, the time I have spent just sitting and thinking about all the little pieces in all these little lives is very well-deserved.
