A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Random House
Paperback
Winner of the Kirkus Prize
A Man Booker Prize Finalist
A National Book Award Finalist
*MICHAEL’S PICK!*
Listen. No one wants to read this book, so let’s just get that out of the way. You might find yourself waiting for the perfect time to take the plunge and submerge yourself in its sad world, but there isn’t one. I read it at the height of summer and it STILL managed to freeze my heart. And it continues to haunt me over five years later. A Little Life isn’t really one of those books where you see yourself in the characters, but where you see the humanity in yourself. It’s less of a character study and more of a WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE AND BE LOVED study. Put simply, this depressing door-stopper of a book should be on everyone’s shelves—preferably face out so the cover can openly cry and grimace as you live your little life.
Deeply moving. . . . A wrenching portrait of the enduring grace of friendship. —NPR
Remarkable. . . . An epic study of trauma and friendship written with such intelligence and depth of perception that it will be one of the benchmarks against which all other novels that broach those subjects (and they are legion) will be measured. . . . A Little Life announces [Yanagihara] as a major American novelist. —The Wall Street Journal
A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
Random House
Paperback
Winner of the Kirkus Prize
A Man Booker Prize Finalist
A National Book Award Finalist
*MICHAEL’S PICK!*
Listen. No one wants to read this book, so let’s just get that out of the way. You might find yourself waiting for the perfect time to take the plunge and submerge yourself in its sad world, but there isn’t one. I read it at the height of summer and it STILL managed to freeze my heart. And it continues to haunt me over five years later. A Little Life isn’t really one of those books where you see yourself in the characters, but where you see the humanity in yourself. It’s less of a character study and more of a WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE AND BE LOVED study. Put simply, this depressing door-stopper of a book should be on everyone’s shelves—preferably face out so the cover can openly cry and grimace as you live your little life.
Deeply moving. . . . A wrenching portrait of the enduring grace of friendship. —NPR
Remarkable. . . . An epic study of trauma and friendship written with such intelligence and depth of perception that it will be one of the benchmarks against which all other novels that broach those subjects (and they are legion) will be measured. . . . A Little Life announces [Yanagihara] as a major American novelist. —The Wall Street Journal
A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
Random House
Paperback
Winner of the Kirkus Prize
A Man Booker Prize Finalist
A National Book Award Finalist
*MICHAEL’S PICK!*
Listen. No one wants to read this book, so let’s just get that out of the way. You might find yourself waiting for the perfect time to take the plunge and submerge yourself in its sad world, but there isn’t one. I read it at the height of summer and it STILL managed to freeze my heart. And it continues to haunt me over five years later. A Little Life isn’t really one of those books where you see yourself in the characters, but where you see the humanity in yourself. It’s less of a character study and more of a WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE AND BE LOVED study. Put simply, this depressing door-stopper of a book should be on everyone’s shelves—preferably face out so the cover can openly cry and grimace as you live your little life.
Deeply moving. . . . A wrenching portrait of the enduring grace of friendship. —NPR
Remarkable. . . . An epic study of trauma and friendship written with such intelligence and depth of perception that it will be one of the benchmarks against which all other novels that broach those subjects (and they are legion) will be measured. . . . A Little Life announces [Yanagihara] as a major American novelist. —The Wall Street Journal
A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.