A Little Life by American author Hanya Yanagihara is quite simply the best book I’ve read all year, and very well deserving of its Man Booker Prize short listing. It’s a book, I think, which will stand out for future generations in the way that Middlemarch or War and Peace or Birdsong stand out as epic studies of life in the time period in which they are set. It hooks you in on the first page and keeps you enthralled until the very last word. It’s one of those books which you almost can’t bear to read, and yet can’t not read. It’s harrowing, enlightening, disturbing, haunting, uplifting and absolutely compelling.
A Little Life is the tale of four college friends who meet at sixteen and remain linked throughout their lives. There isn’t much in the way of plot and if you want a strong storyline this isn’t for you. But that’s not the point of this book. Told from various viewpoints, but with one central character throughout, it’s about friendship, love, relationships, identity, memory, grief, pain, abuse and death. The characterisation is superb and the main characters will linger in your head long after you’ve finished reading the book. But above all it’s the beauty and intelligence of the language which grabs you and won’t let you go. I’m often guilty of skim reading, but I can honestly say I read every single word of this book just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Here’s just one example – ‘A small memory he could contain, but as the days go by and he waits for Willem, he recognizes that this is a long eel of a memory, slippery and uncatchable, and it whipsaws its way through him, its tail slapping against his organs so that he feels the memory as something alive and wounding, feels its meaty, powerful smack against his intestines, his heart, his lungs.’
Beware though – it’s a lengthy book and definitely not a quick read and you’ll need to allocate a chunk of your life to it because you won’t be able to set it aside.
A Little Life is published by Picador and is currently available as a hardback and eBook.