It was like any relationship, he felt-it took constant pruning, and dedication, and vigilance, and if neither party wanted to make the effort, why wouldn’t it wither? I found myself reflecting more appreciatively on the things that make me happy, content, calm, grateful. Its main character’s life is mostly those two things, but…but…the aggressively mundane happinesses stood out so much, delighted me so much, that the novel doesn’t actually feel lopsided. A Little Life is not all sadness, or all pain. While all relationships can have ugly contours, the happiness given by the worthwhile ones feels impossible to capture. Yanagihara wrote things about relationships in this novel I didn’t know I felt until I read them. I’m young, so the beginning, striving section of the book resonated most with me. She worms into their minds and tugs out golden threads that rang so true to me I pulled out my highlighter. Especially the first half, when we follow four college friends- really follow them, Yanagihara style.
More than anything, I am sure that this novel will land differently for each person who picks it up. The only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are-not kinder, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving-and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad-or good-it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all.
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome-but that will define his life forever. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition.
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