She can establish, immediately and engrossingly, both our characters and their worlds. In each section, Yanagihara has an anthropological brilliance for compiling and disseminating objects, signifiers, settings. In none of them are all 50 American states united societal precarity and authoritarianism become amplified over time.

“To Paradise” is broken into three sections over three centuries: 1893, 1993, 2093 in each the world is ours but tilted. “ To Paradise,” Yanagihara’s third novel (out next week), feels like further proof that her greatest strength lies in finding new ways to seduce her readers, while calling into further question the value or the purpose of the lure. It was almost chemically addictive, but it lacked the complexity and texture of an empathic piece of art. In fact, feelings in “A Little Life” were mostly flat and blunt force - the same notes hit hard over and over.

Empathy is not the sole or even the most interesting goal of art, but it is worth exploring what critics have decided is a defining attribute of Yanagihara’s work. “Empathy” was the word used most often in reference to the novel. Elif Batuman aptly compared it in the New Yorker to “ Sex and the City” but with suffering. In contrast to her 2013 debut “The People in the Trees,” Yanagihara’s follow-up had beautiful people, Harvard, the New York art world, money, fashion, architecture. I read the novel, an 816-page New-York-friends melodrama that devolves into near-constant pain and trauma, on a plane, and I sobbed. T-shirts were emblazoned with the names of the four main characters.

It was a finalist for the Booker prize and the National Book Award. In 2015, Hanya Yanagihara’s “ A Little Life” seduced millions. Writing a novel is, in part, an act of manipulation and seduction, a give-and-take, a dance. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.

To paradise by hanya