(Yanagihara’s family is from Hawaii, where the queen was overthrown in 1893, and Hawaii was eventually annexed.) David also keeps a secret about his background and his father’s illness in Hawaii, no longer the paradise It’s 1993 amid the AIDS epidemic, where the shadow of death lurks in thoughts and looks between friends each lesion or weight loss is noted. Part Two is set in both New York and Hawaii, with another unequal relationship at the center, this one between David, a paralegal, and his older partner, Charles, who runs a prestigious law firm. There are clear echoes of James’s Washington Square, though with the author’s singular twist. It’s 1893, and gay couples are free to marry without judgment, but classism and racism reign strong. He eschews an arranged marriage with a socially acceptable partner for an unpredictable relationship with a penniless music teacher. David, a grandson of the Bingham patriot, suffers from an unnamed illness. The tale unfolds in downtown Manhattan, where a rich and influential family-founders of the utopian Free States to which New York belongs-reside. In its first part, To Paradise offers a daring take on the past in which, post-Civil War, the country is divided into the North, Free States, the United Colonies, and the West. And in each, the concept of paradise is explored. The corrupting influence of wealth and power is a constant, as is the influence of a grandparent. There are recurring names of Charlie, David, and Edward and the last names of Griffith, Bingham, and Bishop, with little or no apparent connection to one another. To Paradise is effectively three novels in one, set in different time periods, 100 years apart. Yanagihara rewrites history for the purposes of the novel, drawing on and subverting narrative conventions, and defying our expectations about what’s “normal” in terms of gender.

Yanagihara is now back with To Paradise, another tour de force melding the polished, realist tradition of Henry James and Joseph Conrad with our looser, genre-bending moment. It won the Kirkus Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Award. Published in 2015, Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life is a story about trauma and the tangled relationships among four college friends in New York.

Hanya yanagihara to paradise signed