A Little Life
I’m about 10 years late to the party, but now I’ve joined the party, and here’s what’s on my mind:
1) Has A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara reached popular canon status already? I think it probably has. I don’t mean “canon” in an academic-y kind of way, but in a popular way like Gone With the Wind. (But I’m not trying to compare the two, ok?)
2) Add this to my list of “gobble up” books from November. (See post about Wellness by Nathan Hill, and btw, I should have added The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt to that as well.) That said, A Little Life imparts far more of a gut punch than most of those. But also — and important to note — it got waaaayyyy tedious for me toward the second half…a little too precious and twee and fairy tale-esque despite the heavy subject matter. So be forewarned in the event that you are currently outside the party but want to join. Personal invitation from me — not that you need it.
3) Mostly, though…To the person who was in my year-long creative nonfiction workshop a year or so ago and wrote some beautiful braided essays, one of which that used this novel as a touchpoint: I really hope you’re still working on your book; I loved reading your work so much. (Hope you see this.)
In the event that the party is still going on, I actually would be interested in hearing others’ hot takes on A Little Life. (Thanks to all the people who replied to my story admitting that they hadn’t joined the party yet either…sometimes it’s nice to know what’s going on and what all the fuss is about, but wallflowers are cool too, you know.)
originally published on instagram