I don't remember the last time I wept while reading a book. Not a few tears, but great wrenching sobs that were brought on just as often by the momentI don't remember the last time I wept while reading a book. Not a few tears, but great wrenching sobs that were brought on just as often by the moments of pure love and tenderness portrayed, as they were by the depictions of horrific physical and sexual trauma that the main character endures. This book was heartbreaking, brutal in it's pain, and one of the most resonant depictions of the ways that trauma impacts all parts of our lives that I have read. As the New Yorker review says, "The graphic depictions of abuse and physical suffering that one finds in “A Little Life” are rare in mainstream literary fiction....Yanagihara’s rendering of Jude’s abuse never feels excessive or sensationalist. It is not included for shock value or titillation, as is sometimes the case in works of horror or crime fiction. Jude’s suffering is so extensively documented because it is the foundation of his character." And as someone that has worked with survivors of sexual violence for 20 years now, the ways that Yanagihara centers the abuse and all of it's effects, left me reeling with recognition. I so appreciated that the desire to have some sort of cathartic wrap up where our main character finds his way through the impact of trauma unscathed is understood as impossible. And that is where the strength of this novel lies for me - in the brief moments of joy, tenderness, and love that slip in between the cracks of an absolutely broken life, a life that is defined by the abuse and trauma suffered in formative years, trauma that is inescapable, defining, and forces us to struggle internally with what resilience looks like in such a brutal situation. As Yanagihara herself said in an interview (appropriately titled 'A Stubborn Lack of Redemption') "One of the things I wanted to do with this book is create a character who never gets better. And, relatedly, to explore this idea that there is a level of trauma from which a person simply can’t recover. I do believe that really, we can sustain only a finite amount of suffering. That amount varies from person to person and is different, sometimes wildly so, in nature; what might destroy one person may not another. So much of this book is about Jude’s hopefulness, his attempt to heal himself, and I hope that the narrative’s momentum and suspense comes from the reader’s growing recognition — and Jude’s — that he’s too damaged to ever truly be repaired, and that there’s a single inevitable ending for him."
This was a hard book to read. And a beautiful book to read. And a book that has it's flaws - slightly too long (a small amount of more radical editing at the beginning of the book would have really helped), slightly unbelievable in it's remove from any cultural context of time (the author gives you NO idea when this book is taking place, by removing all cultural references in a city like New York), and slightly over-wrought at points (especially in it's depictions of self-injury). Overall, though, the author drew me in slowly and like boiling a frog in hot water, only turned the heat up in increments, revealing the scope and nature of the abuse over time, which both stunned me and surprised me not at all. The redemption that does come in this book is through those small moments of love, tenderness, and kindness that she inserts just as strongly as the abuse, through the friendships and deep love portrayed in the second half of the main character's life.
I embarked on this novel without knowing the arc of the storyline. The sexual and physical violence were a surprise to me, and I considered setting this book aside, having long ago sworn off books that sensationalize sexual violence as a self-protective measure, but I will leave you with a quote from the author that resonated so much for me, "As regards sexual violence, well, were we to avoid that topic, it’d mean avoiding not only much of art, but also history itself: it’d mean avoiding the world. Much as I hope the reader is there in this book to bear witness to Jude’s life and his suffering, we equally owe it as humans to witness other humans’ suffering as well, and not turn away because it makes us uncomfortable." And you will be uncomfortable if you read this book. But you will also be filled with elemental beauty. And that, my friends, is what made this one a 5 star read for me. I felt a bit like the scar tissue on Jude's back by the end, raw and painful, yet covered in newly growing skin....more
This National Book Award finalist is a first novel by a writer that attended the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, always of interest to me as an This National Book Award finalist is a first novel by a writer that attended the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, always of interest to me as an Iowa Citian. More than that, this novel had a charm of both place and character. Detroit actually felt like one of the living breathing characters. The rest of the characters are made up largely of the 13 children of Francis and Viola, who moved to Detroit from Arkansas in the 40's and raised their large brood, led by the eldest Cha-Cha, in Detroit. The NY Times book review says (far more eloquently than I could):
"Flournoy’s prose is artful without being showy. She takes the time to flesh out the world. The contents of a garage include “an old walker and its dirty, impaled tennis balls, a disassembled hospital bed, boxes and boxes of gauze.” Francis guesses a woman is in her late 30s because of “the way the skin between her breasts folded like a tiny accordion when she put them in a brassiere.” Detroit is evoked with similar care. Flournoy realistically portrays the challenges of living in a neighborhood long after whites retreated “to the suburbs, leaving vacant houses in their wake.” The Turners’ aluminum-sided garage is stolen right off their house, to be sold as scrap metal.... That Flournoy’s main characters are black is central to this book, and yet her treatment of that essential fact is never essentializing. Flournoy gets at the universal through the patient observation of one family’s particulars. In this assured and memorable novel, she provides the feeling of knowing a family from the inside out, as we would wish to know our own."...more
Really a 2.5 for me -- I enjoyed it, I mean, it *is* a book about cooking, the love of cooking, the way that cooking is connected to emotion, and all.Really a 2.5 for me -- I enjoyed it, I mean, it *is* a book about cooking, the love of cooking, the way that cooking is connected to emotion, and all. And yet, so syrupy sweet and absolutely redolent with privilege that I could never fully enjoy....more
Sometimes I also read for work. This book is a fantastic resource for nonprofits who do empathic/redemptive work, and lays out ways to identify a trauSometimes I also read for work. This book is a fantastic resource for nonprofits who do empathic/redemptive work, and lays out ways to identify a traumatized organization or system, as well as factors for developing organizational resilience. I have worked with Pat for years and was so glad when she and Shana Horman wrote a book based on their consulting work with traumatized organizations. I use it almost daily!...more
I really, really, REALLY liked this book, I enjoyed the language, was engaged with the characters from the first page, and loved being tugged along thI really, really, REALLY liked this book, I enjoyed the language, was engaged with the characters from the first page, and loved being tugged along through her narrative reveals to so many conclusions that should have been obvious and were not. NPR's review said it far better than I could have:
“Between his skin and hers, there was the smallest of spaces, barely enough for air, for this slick of sweat now chilling. Even still, a third person, their marriage, had slid in.” ― Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies: A Novel
"And that, my friends, is Lauren Groff. Some of the last lines of Part 1 of her new novel, Fates And Furies.
The best lines? Nope. They are all (or almost all) best lines. The book is a master class in best lines; a shining, rare example of that most unforgiving and brutal writer's advice: All you have to do is write the best sentence you've ever written. Then 10,000 more of the best. Then find a way to string them together into the story of something." ...more
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