What Not to Read

Don’t pick up Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life if you’re looking for a light read, a bit of escapism while on holiday, a novel that will give you that warm inner glow. On the other hand, if you reckon you can tolerate a protracted and detailed account of child sexual abuse ( described as ‘unrelieved, grotesque and extravagant’ by a Guardian reviewer ) then go for it. Jude St Francis, the main protagonist and a victim par excellence, is irreparably damaged both physically and psychologically and although the novel starts by being about a group of college friends it soon becomes predominantly his story. I should also add that you won’t be able to rationalise some of what happens, that in parts it’s repetitive and overwritten, that at over 700 pages your reading experience is not a brief one and that things don’t end happily.

It’s also by far the best novel I’ve read this year. I can hardly ‘recommend’ it given what I’ve written above ( it reminds me of ‘liking’ a Facebook post when it’s notification of something awful) At times, particularly just before going to sleep, I couldn’t bear any more and had to put it down. I also wouldn’t want to discuss it at a book club ( where inevitably the discussion would turn on whether Jude’s experiences were based on ‘reality’ or not ) But there’s also a lot of love in Yanagihara’s tale ( at times an unfeasibly generous amount ) and in this sense, A Little Life is like a fairy tale with extremes of cruelty and virtue. In some kind of way that I can’t explain the novel manages to celebrate all that’s good in humankind while not flinching from describing the very worst it can inflict. You have been warned…