Yanagihara’s reach here is different – broader and more diffuse.
The way it drilled so deeply, again and again, into the suffering of its central character was a virtuosic imitation of what it’s like to be trapped in the never-ending cycles of abuse and trauma. The relentlessness of A Little Life was magnificent. “Zone Eight” induces its own visceral reaction: a cold sense of dread crept up my spine, yet the characters are so well drawn and the plot so well paced, I couldn’t put it down. Critics of her Booker Prize-shortlisted debut A Little Life likened its graphic depiction of child abuse and self-harm to trauma porn. “Zone Eight”, this final section, might cut a little too close to the bone for some, but Yanagihara has always leant fearlessly into what horrifies, disgusts and terrifies us. Ravaged by increasingly deadly pandemics and climate change, its surviving citizens live under draconian state surveillance. Finally, the novel draws to a close with an unnerving portrait of New York at the end of the 21st century. Opening with a counterfactual version of the late 19th century – in which New York is one of eight Free States where same-sex marriage is legal, and (white) women have the same rights as (white) men – we’re then transported to 1990s Manhattan, where AIDS is the ominous backdrop to what’s otherwise a world of enviable privilege. Meanwhile, characters share names and traits, and themes and motifs re-emerge: illness and disability absentee parents the sometimes terrible, sometimes extraordinary lengths we’ll go to in order to protect those we love the question of what separates life from mere existence and our desire to believe in the possibility of creating a better world, even if better for some is never better for all. Each exists in its own bubble, but a Washington Square townhouse in New York’s Greenwich Village takes centre stage in all three.
It too deals in multiple tenses: an America that could have been, one close to the world we know, and one that could still come into being. To Paradise itself might be best described thus.
Remember that.” Kawika is struck by the peculiarity of her syntax: the “strange mix of tenses, a sentence of promises and grievances, reassurances and consolations”. And someday, you should still be king, too. As Hawaii becomes the 50th American state, his mother impresses upon him: “This doesn’t change anything, you know, Kawika. About a third of the way through Hanya Yanagihara’s awe-inspiring new novel, the narrator of the section in question – a Hawaiian boy directly descended from the island’s royal family – has the significance of his lineage impressed upon him.
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