A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. I’m reading To Paradise now, and while it is not shaping up to be as good, it does have some powerful moments. Here is an excerpt from a section that spoke to me.
For days, he did not leave: not his bed, not his room. He was tormented by thoughts of Andrew, and of his degradation, and if he was not thinking of one, he was thinking of the other. It seemed that if he stopped engaging with the world, then it too might stop engaging with him, and as days turned into weeks, he lay in his bed and tried to think of nothing, certainly not of himself within the world’s dizzying vastness, and finally, after many weeks, the world did indeed shrink to something manageable- his bed, his room, his grandfather’s undemanding daily and nightly visits. Finally, after nearly three months, something broke, as if he had been encased in a shell and someone- not him- had tapped it open, and he emerged feeble and pale and hardened, he thought, against Andrew and his own mortification. He swore, then, that he would never again let himself feel so passionately, never let himself be so full of adoration, so replete with happiness, a vow that he would extend not just to people but to art as well, so that when Grandfather sent him to Europe for a year under the guise of a Grand Tour (but really, they both knew, as a way to avoid Andrew, who was still living in the city, still with his beau, who was now his fiance), he moved lightly among the frescoes and paintings that loomed down from every ceiling, from every wall: He looked up and at them and felt nothing.
[…]
Two years after his return from Europe, he had received a card from Andrew announcing the adoption of his and his husband’s first child, a girl, and he had written a congratulatory note back. But then, that night, he had begun to wonder: What was the purpose of Andrew’s note? Had it truly been sent intentionally, or was it an oversight? Was it a gesture of friendship, or was it meant to ridicule? He sent a longer letter to Andrew, inquiring about him and confessing how he missed him.
And then it was as if something had been undammed in him, and he began to write letter after letter, by turns accusing Andrew and pleading with him, condemning him and imploring him. After dinner, he would sit with Grandfather in his drawing room, trying to stop his fingers from twitching with impatience, looking at the chessboard but seeing in his mind his desk with its paper and blotter, and as soon as he was able, he would leave, running up the final steps, and write Andrew again, ringing for Matthew late into the night to post his most recent missive. His disgrace, when it came- as even he knew it would- was great: An attorney who represented Andrew’s husband’s family asked for a meeting with Frances Holson, and gravely drew from his case a stack of David’s letters to Andrew, dozens of them, the last twenty or so not even opened, and told Frances that David must stop bothering his client. Frances spoke to his grandfather, and his grandfather spoke to him, and though he had been gentle, David’s anguish had been so intense that this time it had been his grandfather who had confined him to his room, with one of the maids to watch over him day or night, so worried was he that David might harm himself.
-pages 159-162