6 years on from the release of A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara is set to release her new tripartite novel – To Paradise – on 11th January, an awesome work of fiction that is intricately woven, spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment. It’s a novel about lovers, family, loss and the promise of paradise, itself. Pre-order a copy here.
Hanya Yanaghiara’s 2015 novel A Little Life continues to stand the test of time as one of the most important, emotional reads of the last decade. Going into 2022, her new novel To Paradise was easily one of the most anticipated books of the year. For readers expecting the kind of emotional journey in A Little Life, one in which characters become family – loved for their failings and flaws as much as their strengths, To Paradise is not that. It seems unfair almost to the latter to compare the two novels, but given the seminal nature of both works from Yanagihara, comparisons are unavoidable. Yanagihara again proves her awe-inspiring ability to write an impressive work of fiction and portray emptiness and depression with a very real power, still To Paradise does not whack an emotional punch, owing in part to the unreachability of the main characters.
Standing alone, To Paradise is an awe-inspiring work of fiction – this you can not deny. Constructed in three sections – three stories of three centuries in a fictionalised American history. ‘America’ in this case, a deconstructed version of the USA we are familiar with today, in which different regions have been separated into different kingdoms. Yanagihara has thoughtfully and artfully constructed these sections, using emblems and themes to weave the parts together, rather than a through storyline. This idea though is not for everyone – there will doubtless be many readers who put down To Paradise – it’s an alright tome and given that it is in three separate parts, it does not move to the end with a propulsive force. However, in doing so, they will miss the magic of Yanagihara’s writing, her ability to give voice to contrasting and disparate characters, and paint a fictionalised, but eerily real picture of both a fictional historical realm and a dystopian society.
Part One tells the story of the bachelor David Bingham in 1893 New York who is being set up for an arranged marriage to Charles Griffith by his grandfather. However, David is drawn to a penniless but enigmatic music teacher, Edward Bishop and is forced to make the choice between a stable, gilded life in America with Charles or a potentially doomed love match with Edward. Part Two whisks forward to 1990s New York, another David Bingham lives with his rich, elder partner Charles – a partner at the law firm in which he is a paralegal. He is grappling with his relationship with his father back in Hawaii, letters from his father revealing the history of David’s life. The final section is the perhaps most emotionally-taxing, given the current climate. Part Three takes up most of the book. Set in 2090s New York, Charlie is a lab technician who lives with her husband in a semi-dystopian society riddled with different pandemics and illnesses. As she begins to understand her husband’s life, the reader is also told about her own family history, including her father’s fight against the State and her grandfather’s involvement in the quarantine camps of decades past. Each of these parts is a stand-alone novel in itself, brought together by the names of characters – Charles Griffith, David Bingham, Eden – and places, including Washington Square. At first, it seems that these motifs will draw the novel together, but it becomes clear that these really do little to serve the work as a whole, generally making these feel a little pointless. In all honesty, the first part of the novel is far more propulsive than the semi-dystopian final part, which is surprising given the currency of the issues at play in Part Three, and the endings of each part felt a little lacklustre.
Yanagihara’s talent is immensely clear throughout To Paradise, but it feels like she has just missed the mark to make this a really seminal work of fiction. Some of the side plots and fixations – a mother trying to save her twin sons while she falls prey to a new virus, confinements due to mental illness and the beginnings of an intended ‘cult’ like existence in Hawaii – seem almost more promising than some of the main plot lines with which the novel deals. If it is possible, To Paradise feels almost more unsettling, darker and more tense than A Little Life, yet it is definitely less accessible and is a novel that will not be universally loved. The central question remains, what is the ideal of paradise, is it possible and what will we give up in order to attain it? The answers may be contained within this mammoth novel, yet it is not immediately obvious.
