Gigantic, strange, exquisite, terrifying, and replete with mystery.
A triptych of stories set in 1893, 1993, and 2093 explore the fate of humanity, the essential power and sorrow of love, and the unique doom brought upon itself by the United States.
After the extraordinary reception of Yanagihara's Kirkus Prize–winning second novel, A Little Life (2015), her follow-up could not be more eagerly awaited. While it is nothing like either of her previous novels, it's also unlike anything else you've read (though Cloud Atlas, The House of Mirth, Martin and John, and Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy may all cross your mind at various points). More than 700 pages long, the book is composed of three sections, each a distinct narrative, each set in a counterfactual historical iteration of the place we call the United States. The narratives are connected by settings and themes: A house on Washington Square in Greenwich Village is central to each; Hawaii comes up often, most prominently in the second. The same names are used for (very different) characters in each story; almost all are gay and many are married. Even in the Edith Wharton–esque opening story, in which the scion of a wealthy family is caught between an arranged marriage and a reckless affair, both of his possible partners are men. Illness and disability are themes in each, most dramatically in the third, set in a brutally detailed post-pandemic totalitarian dystopia. Here is the single plot connection we could find: In the third part, a character remembers hearing a story with the plot of the first. She mourns the fact that she never did get to hear the end of it: "After all these years I found myself wondering what had happened....I knew it was foolish because they weren't even real people but I thought of them often. I wanted to know what had become of them." You will know just how she feels. But what does it mean that Yanagihara acknowledges this? That is just one of the conundrums sure to provoke years of discussion and theorizing. Another: Given the punch in the gut of utter despair one feels when all the most cherished elements of 19th- and 20th-century lives are unceremoniously swept off the stage when you turn the page to the 21st—why is the book not called To Hell?
Gigantic, strange, exquisite, terrifying, and replete with mystery.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-385-54793-2
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
An emotionally acute study of manliness.
Scenes from the life of a well-off but emotionally damaged man.
Szalay’s sixth novel is a study of István, who as a 15-year-old in Hungary is lured into a sexual relationship with a married neighbor; when he has a confrontation with the woman’s husband, the man falls down the stairs and dies. Add in stints in a juvenile facility and as a soldier in Iraq, and István enters his 20s almost completely stunted emotionally. (Saying much besides “Okay” sometimes seems utterly beyond him.) Fueled by id, libido, and street drugs, he seems destined to be a casualty until, while working as a bouncer at a London strip club, he helps rescue the owner of a security firm who’s been assaulted; soon, he’s hired as the driver for a tycoon and his wife, with whom he begins an affair. István is a fascinating character in a kind of negative sense—he’s intriguing for all the ways he fails to confront his trauma, all the missed opportunities to find deeper connections. To that end, Szalay’s prose is emotionally bare, deliberately clipped and declarative, evoking István’s unwillingness (or incapacity) to look inside himself; he occasionally consults with a therapist, but a relentless passivity keeps him from opening up much. His capacity to fail upwards eventually catches up with him, and the novel becomes a more standard story about betrayal and inheritances, but it also turns on small but meaningful moments of heroism that suggest a deeper character than somebody who, as someone suggests, “exemplif[ies] a primitive form of masculinity.” István’s relentlessly stony approach to existence grates at times—there are a few too many “okay”s in the dialogue—but Szalay’s distanced approach has its payoffs. Being closed off, like István, doesn’t close off the world, and at times has tragic consequences.
An emotionally acute study of manliness.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781982122799
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
An evocative, kaleidoscopic affirmation of life from the perspective of Death.
The personification of death stumbles on companionship in the small British city where he lives, as he continues standing sentinel beside people in their last moments.
Narrator Travis Smith is “inside everything”—ebullient mayflies, skittish deer, and the people around him. He’s privy to how long they’ll live and to every intricacy of their lives, his job to stand witness to people’s dying moments. He’s never challenged this role, even as the ever-present noise sometimes overwhelms him. But Travis finds his isolated, detached life disrupted by Dalia, a midwife, and her two young daughters, who live in the flat across the hall. Through them, he unintentionally becomes a participant in life in a new way. The novel captures the seemingly contradictory idea of beauty in scenes of pain. The violence of a car crash is juxtaposed with the natural world surrounding it, the banality of everyday life continuing even as one life stops. This tension is woven throughout, as readers glimpse Travis’ work as a witness to people’s dying moments. In short passages in which Travis describes a person’s end and salient events in their life, we see a well-etched character for whom death can be relief, terror, or perhaps the ultimate injustice. Author Reeves has a keen eye for the salient detail, making the reader become emotionally invested in characters seen only briefly. As Travis’ narration moves from his work to the quiet yet increasingly meaningful time he spends with his neighbors, it illuminates a microcosm of the cycles of life and death, as glimpsed through the natural world and scenes with community members. Conversations feature crisp dialogue and moments of silence that emphasize how loss and grief can’t always be articulated and comfort can’t always be given. As Travis’ relationships with his neighbors grow, his sense of himself as a person outside his role also evolves, and his job begins to burden him emotionally. Through Travis, we see the beauty of love and small moments of companionship and connection, all the more powerful for the fact of life’s brevity and unpredictable end.
An evocative, kaleidoscopic affirmation of life from the perspective of Death.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781668216361
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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