review of to paradise by hanya yanagihara

In To Paradise, the highly acclaimed author of A Little Life and The People in the Trees, tells three distinct stories that take place in New York City, each told 100 years apart. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara's understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love - partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens - and the pain that ensues when we cannot.Hanya Yanagihara’s latest novel is actually three tales of New York. To Paradise is a fin-de-siecle novel of marvellous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. These three sections are joined in a symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost wealth and squalor the weak and the strong race the definition of family, and of nationhood the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can't exist. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist's damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him - and solve the mystery of her husband's disappearances.

In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). It's rare that you get the opportunity to review a masterpiece, but To Paradise, definitively, is one.' - Observer'įrom Hanya Yanagihara, author of the modern classic A Little Life, To Paradise is a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.

To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara ( paperback Jan 2023) £9.99

Review of to paradise by hanya yanagihara