a little life book resume

A Little Life

By hanya yanagihara.

• A Little Life Summary

A Little Life explores the tragic life of Jude St. Francis . The plot is conveyed through flashbacks and retrospective narration. Jude is abandoned at a monastery in South Dakota as an infant and raised by the priests there. They are generally cruel and abusive towards him, and when one priest, Brother Luke , takes a special interest in him, Jude initially feels grateful for the affection. When Jude is 11, Brother Luke abducts him from the monastery. They spend years on the run, crisscrossing the country. During this time, Luke both repeatedly rapes Jude and offers him to other men to have sex with in exchange for money. One day, in Montana, police raid the hotel room and attempt to arrest Brother Luke, though he hangs himself before they can detain him. Jude is transferred to foster care, where he continues to experience physical and sexual abuse. When he is fourteen, he runs away and attempts to hitchhike to Boston alone. Along the way, he becomes very sick and ends up being abducted by another sadistic man, known as Dr. Traylor . Traylor holds Jude captive, raping him repeatedly, and eventually running him over with a car. The injuries Jude sustains in this incident leave him with permanent disabilities and lifelong pain.

However, in the hospital, Jude encounters a sympathetic social worker named Ana , who encourages him to plan to go to college. At college, Jude becomes part of a circle of close friends along with Willem, an attractive aspiring model, JB, a painter from a Haitian family, and Malcolm, an architect from a wealthy family. Jude feels closest to Willem because, like him, Willem is an orphan who did not grow up in a wealthy family. After graduation, Jude and Willem move in together in a shabby apartment on Lispenard Street in New York City. Jude is beloved by his friends but is also very secretive about his past; he never reveals the source of his disability, nor the fact that he regularly engages in self-harming behaviors as a way to cope with his past trauma. The only person with whom Jude is fully honest is his doctor, Andy. Andy helps to protect Jude's secrets and does his best to care for him.

In the years post-graduation, the careers of all four men gradually advance. Jude attends law school, where he attracts the attention of a professor named Harold. Over time, Jude becomes close with Harold and his wife, Julia . Since Harold and Julia grow to love Jude like their son, they eventually end up formally adopting him. Jude initially begins working as a public defense attorney but eventually takes on a much higher-paying role at a corporate firm. Secretly, Jude knows that his health is deteriorating, and he wants to ensure he always has enough income to live in comfort. Meanwhile, Willem's career as an actor has taken off, and he and Jude remain very close. In contrast, Jude's relationship with JB gradually breaks down: Jude is hurt when JB exhibits paintings of Jude without asking for his consent, and later on, as JB succumbs to drug addiction, he cruelly mocks Jude's disability. Although JB apologizes, Jude is never able to forgive him.

Throughout his 30s and 40s, Jude lives a double life. He has many close and loving friendships, notably with Willem, and unconditional love and support from Harold and Julia. His career is extremely successful, and he earns a lot of money. At the same time, he lives with constant physical pain and psychological trauma. He has never revealed anything about his past to anyone, he regularly self-harms, and he lives in constant dread that someone he cares about will find out about his past. Although Jude has never been in a romantic relationship, when he meets an attractive fashion designer named Caleb, he tentatively begins a relationship. However, Caleb becomes horribly abusive, beating and raping Jude. Harold eventually discovers what has happened and also realizes that Jude has been cutting himself. Harold and Andy keep Jude's secret about what has happened, but the trauma of what he experiences with Caleb leads Jude to attempt to commit suicide.

Jude survives his suicide attempt, and Willem, who has been somewhat preoccupied with his career and frequent travels, realizes that his beloved friend needs more support. Willem moves in with Jude and eventually admits that he is in love with him. Jude reciprocates some of these feelings, but navigating the relationship is difficult for him. He hates having sex and resents Willem asking him about his past. Willem eventually finds about Jude's self-harming, and this leads to many conflicts between the two of them, along with Jude escalating his dangerous behavior. Eventually, Jude tells Willem the full story of all the abuse and trauma he suffered as a child and adolescent. He also admits how much he hates sex. After this, Jude and Willem stay together as loving companions, but they no longer have a sexual relationship.

Jude and Willem have years of relative happiness together, but as Jude grows older, his injuries cause him more and more pain. Eventually, he has both legs amputated. Even then, there are many happy moments because of his friends, family, and career. However, when Jude is in his early fifties, Willem, Malcolm, and Malcolm's wife, Sophie , are all tragically killed in a car accident. After the accident, Jude's mental health deteriorates rapidly. Andy and Harold try to help as best as they can, but in the final section of the novel, Harold reveals that Jude killed himself 2 years after Willem's death, at age 51.

A Little Life Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for A Little Life is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for A Little Life

A Little Life study guide contains a biography of Hanya Yanagihara, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About A Little Life
• Character List

Essays for A Little Life

A Little Life essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

• Stigma of Dependence: Character Analysis in Three Recent Novels

Wikipedia Entries for A Little Life

• Introduction
• Plot summary

A Little Life Summary and Key Themes

Ever wondered what pain must feel like? 

Not just physical pain, but mental pain as well. Hanya Yanagihara portrays that exact same feeling in A Little Life, published in 2015. 

The story follows four friends – Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm – as they navigate life in New York City. Each of them have their own struggles to deal with. Yanagihara wrote this books as a means to show the world that someone trauma is something that can never be healed.

A Little Life Summary

The novel begins with Jude and Willem moving into a shabby apartment on Lispenard Street. Willem is an actor working as a waiter, haunted by his past and the loss of his brother, Hemming. 

Jude is a talented lawyer with a mysterious and painful history , including chronic pain in his legs and back. Willem cares deeply for Jude and feels protective of him.

JB, an artist, is struggling for recognition and paints his friends, including Jude and Willem. Malcolm, from a wealthy family, is embarrassed about still living at home. 

The group’s dynamics are complex, with JB and Malcolm having their own issues despite their more privileged backgrounds.

One New Year’s Eve, after an incident where Jude injures himself, the friends get locked out on a roof. 

In a daring move, they manage to get back inside, but the episode is a glimpse into the group’s intense and sometimes perilous world.

As time goes by, the friends’ lives evolve. Willem’s acting career takes off, and Jude reflects on his traumatic past, including abuse at a monastery and a brief but impactful relationship with a social worker named Ana. 

He also thinks about his bond with a college professor, Harold, who becomes a father figure, despite Jude’s fears of being abandoned due to his secrecy about his past.

Jude’s life is further complicated by a rift with JB, a health scare that prompts a career change, and an abusive relationship with a man named Caleb. Despite these challenges, Jude is adopted by Harold and Julia, which brings some stability to his life.

Willem becomes a successful movie star, while Jude’s mental health declines, leading to a suicide attempt. Willem becomes increasingly devoted to Jude, and they eventually start a romantic relationship. However, their relationship is strained by Jude’s past traumas and inability to enjoy physical intimacy.

After a series of infections, Jude decides to have his legs amputated, which brings some relief from his physical pain. Tragedy strikes again when Willem dies in a car accident, leaving Jude devastated. Despite an attempt to reconnect with JB, Jude’s grief is overwhelming, and his mental health continues to deteriorate.

In the end, Jude takes his own life, leaving behind a letter that reveals his traumatic past to Harold. The story concludes with Harold remembering a moment with Jude, reflecting on their deep but ultimately tragic connection.

Also Read: Don Quixote Summary and Key Lessons

1. The Impact of Trauma and the Importance of Mental Health

The book delves deeply into the lifelong effects of trauma, emphasizing how early experiences can shape an individual’s entire life. 

Jude’s character illustrates the challenges of dealing with past abuse and the complexities of mental health. The novel teaches us about the importance of acknowledging and addressing traumatic experiences, seeking professional help, and creating a supportive environment for healing. 

It also highlights the difficulties in overcoming deep-seated psychological scars and the need for patience and understanding from those around us. 

This lesson is a reminder of the importance of mental health awareness and the need for compassion and empathy towards those who struggle with these invisible wounds.

2. The Power and Limitations of Love and Friendship in Healing

Throughout the novel, the bonds of friendship and love are portrayed as both a source of strength and a limitation. 

The relationships between Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm show how deep connections can provide support and comfort. However, the story also reveals the limits of these bonds in healing deep psychological trauma. 

Jude’s friends and loved ones struggle to fully understand or alleviate his pain, underscoring that while love and friendship are vital, they cannot always heal all wounds. 

This lesson teaches us about the complexity of human relationships and the need to balance our desire to help those we care about with the recognition that some aspects of healing must come from within or from professional intervention.

Also Read: Jane Eyre Summary and Key Lessons

3. Human Resilience and Vulnerability is Key To Maintaining Mind Balance

Yanagihara, in her story, offers a nuanced exploration of resilience and vulnerability. 

Jude’s life is a testament to his incredible resilience – his ability to achieve professional success and maintain relationships despite his past. 

Yet, his story also shows the limits of this resilience, as he struggles with inner demons that ultimately lead to his tragic end. This duality teaches us that human strength and fragility can coexist in complex ways. 

The novel encourages us to understand that resilience is not a simple matter of overcoming obstacles but involves a continuous and often challenging process of coping, healing, and sometimes, succumbing to one’s vulnerabilities. 

It’s a reminder of the diverse ways individuals respond to life’s challenges and the importance of acknowledging both our strengths and our vulnerabilities.

Final Thoughts

“A Little Life” is a deeply emotional and often harrowing exploration of friendship, love, trauma, and the human capacity for endurance and suffering. 

The novel’s intense focus on Jude’s inner life and his relationships provides a poignant and heart-wrenching view of how past traumas can shape and, in tragic cases, ultimately claim a person’s life. 

While the narrative offers moments of love, kindness, and redemption, it also doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of mental illness and the long-lasting effects of abuse. 

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Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

A Little Life

by Hanya Yanagihara

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Literary Fiction
• New England, USA
• New York State
• Contemporary
• Coming of Age
• Mid-Life Onwards
• Dealing with Loss
• Adult-YA Crossover Fiction
• Asian Authors
• Top 20 Best Books of 2015

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About this Book

Book summary.

Brace yourself for the most astonishing, challenging, upsetting, and profoundly moving book in many a season. An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the darkest places fiction has ever traveled and yet somehow improbably breaks through into the light. Truly an amazement - and a great gift for its publisher. When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever. In rich and resplendent prose, Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and transcendent hymn to brotherly love, a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance.

The eleventh apartment had only one closet, but it did have a sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony, from which he could see a man sitting across the way, outdoors in only a T-shirt and shorts even though it was October, smoking. Willem held up a hand in greeting to him, but the man didn't wave back. In the bedroom, Jude was accordioning the closet door, opening and shutting it, when Willem came in. "There's only one closet," he said. "That's okay," Willem said. "I have nothing to put in it anyway." "Neither do I." They smiled at each other. The agent from the building wandered in after them. "We'll take it," Jude told her. But back at the agent's office, they were told they couldn't rent the apartment after all. "Why not?" Jude asked her. "You don't make enough to cover six months' rent, and you don't have anything in savings," said the agent, suddenly terse. She had checked their credit and their bank accounts and had at last ...

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Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

"The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." These memorable opening lines might belong to another brilliant novel ( The Go-Between , by L. P. Hartley) but they could well form the essential scaffolding for A Little Life , a wrenching yet illuminating exploration of how child abuse can exert a suffocating grip on adulthood... continued

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(Reviewed by Poornima Apte ).

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Beyond the Book

Novels that feature close-knit friends.

One of the many astute portrayals in A Little Life is the closely knit group of friends to which Jude St. Francis, the haunted protagonist, belongs. While the literal coming-of-age happens during the teen years, it could be argued that college, for those who attend, is the real deal. It is a transformative experience for most people, and they forge friendships that form an essential support network when they are cast out into the real world. These relationships are more than the rose-colored variety as depicted by television sitcoms such as Friends . Indeed A Little Life follows its core group: Jude, Willem, JB and Malcolm, over the course of three decades showing how the course of a life can bruise or fortify friendships. Here are some ...

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'A Little Life': An Unforgettable Novel About The Grace Of Friendship

John Powers

A Little Life

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America is hooked on stories of redemption and rebirth, be it Cheryl Strayed rediscovering herself by hiking the Pacific Trail or the late David Carr pulling himself out of the crack-house and into The New York Times . We just love tales about healing.

But how far should we trust them? That's one of the many questions raised by A Little Life , a new novel by Hanya Yanagihara, whose acclaimed debut, The People in the Trees , came from seemingly nowhere 18 months ago. This new book is long, page-turny, deeply moving, sometimes excessive, but always packed with the weight of a genuine experience . As I was reading, I literally dreamed about it every night.

The book follows three decades in the life of four friends from a posh college. There's the kindhearted actor, Willem, and the self-centered artist, JB, of Haitian stock. There's the timorous would-be architect, Malcolm, born of a wealthy, mixed-race family and the handsome, lame Jude, a brilliant attorney addicted to cutting himself. As the book begins, they've moved to New York to make their fortune, and over the next 700 pages — yes, 700 — we watch them rise, lose their bearings, fall in love, slide into squabbles and wrestle with life's inevitable tragedies.

Yanagihara has a keen eye for social detail, and reading her early riff on actors like Willem who work as waiters, you may think she's offering something familiar — a generational portrait like Mary McCarthy's The Group or the witty, emblematic realism of Jonathan Franzen. In fact, the book's apparent normalcy lures you into the woods of something darker, stranger and more harrowing. Turns out that everything largely orbits around one of the four, Jude, whose gothic past Yanagihara slowly reveals.

For those who want trigger warnings, consider yourself warned — Jude's tale has enough triggers for a Texas gun show. The poor guy may endure the harshest childhood in fiction, one that's equal parts Dickens, Sade and Grimm's Fairy Tales . Evidently named for the patron saint of the hopeless and despairing, Jude is treated so badly that I flashed back to my mom reading me the book Beautiful Joe , about a dog so cruelly abused that I melted into inconsolable weeping.

Hanya Yanagihara's acclaimed debut, The People in the Trees , was released 18 months ago. Sam Levy/Courtesy of Doubleday hide caption

Hanya Yanagihara's acclaimed debut, The People in the Trees , was released 18 months ago.

Yanagihara writes with even more trenchant precision about the scars on the adult Jude's soul — the self-hatred and self-destructiveness, the yearning for love laced with utter mistrust, the baroque defense mechanisms he erects to keep anyone from learning who he really is. He struggles again and again, in long frustrating detail, to recover from his past, along with support from his friends, his doctor, Andy, and his law-school mentor, Harold, who becomes a father figure.

Now, I should also warn you that these struggles become too much, as sometimes happens with a John Cassavetes movie. Readers will be ready to move on, even if Jude is not. Then again, the book's driven obsessiveness is inseparable from the emotional force that will leave countless readers weeping.

Besides, Jude's condition is Yanagihara's way of exploring larger issues. Even as the book pointedly challenges the neat, happy arc of popular redemption stories — "People don't change," Jude decides — it calls on our imaginative sympathy. Yanagihara is fascinated by how we understand minds very different from our own. Here, Jude's ghastly history puts him in a mental universe that his friends — and readers — must work to enter. Not that this is impossible, mind you. He's no alien. Jude's guardedness makes him the heightened embodiment of the secret private self we all have, with our own calming rituals, mental hideaways and escape hatches.

While A Little Life is shot through with pain, it's far from being all dark. Jude's suffering finds its equipoise in the decency and compassion of those who love him; the book is a wrenching portrait of the enduring grace of friendship. With her sensitivity to everything from the emotional nuance to the play of light inside a subway car, Yanagihara is superb at capturing the radiant moments of beauty, warmth and kindness that help redeem the bad stuff. In A Little Life , it's life's evanescent blessings that maybe, but only maybe, can save you.

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Review: ‘A Little Life,’ Hanya Yanagihara’s Traumatic Tale of Male Friendship

By Janet Maslin

• Sept. 30, 2015
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Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life,” published in March, turned out to be one of the most talked-about novels of the summer. It’s a big, emotional, trauma-packed read with a voluptuous prose style that wavers between the exquisite and the overdone. A potboiler about very intense male friendship, it’s a sui generis phenomenon that became a runaway hit. And it is now a shortlisted contender for the Man Booker Prize , which will be awarded on Oct. 13.

“A Little Life” initially looks like the story of four college friends who have come to New York from their Massachusetts school and are managing to lead hermetically sealed lives together. They are Malcolm, who still lives with his rich parents; J. B., already an ambitious artist; Willem, a good-looking waiter; and Jude, a mesmerizing wounded bird whom the others can’t figure out. These four intend to be friends for life, and the book intends each of them to be very, very successful in his chosen field some day.

It opens at an unspecified time, when Jude and Willem are living in picturesque poverty in Chinatown, their closeness solidified by shared deprivation. They also share a sense of suffering. Jude is secretive about his past, but we quickly learn of Willem that before he was “a kind man, he was a kind boy.” His disabled brother died young, and Willem will carry that memory with him as Jude grows from beautiful boy to a man who requires more and more patience and loving care. Their early friendship is so warmly described that this vibrant part of the book is irresistible.

Willem’s good looks and innate talent ease his way into acting. Meanwhile, J. B., who is black, turns out to be a talented artist who concentrates on paintings of his three friends. He often paints Jude, whose unfathomable mixed-race origins and air of mystery make for beautiful images that are soon the talk of the art world, if also a great annoyance to Jude himself. And Malcolm, who is half-black, and easily needled by J. B. about it, has a gift for architecture that he parlays into a successful business. Someday he will be designing the fabulously hip homes (yes, plural) that Jude’s success as a fierce litigator allows him to buy.

So upward they all go. But this is not a happy story. At its heart is Jude’s secret suffering, and Malcolm and J. B. soon fade into minor characters as race becomes a nonissue. It will turn out that Jude has spent his whole life — from the moment he was first discovered, as a newborn either in or near a garbage bag — being subjected to horrendous abuse by a series of sadists who simply defy belief. The full parade of them adds up to almost more misery than one novel can contain.

Ms. Yanagihara, who now works for The New York Times as a deputy editor of T magazine, doles out the memories of them sparingly, breaking down Jude’s revelations into separate flashbacks that are scattered throughout “A Little Life.” As the book toughens and saddens, those flashbacks are mixed with present-day horrors about Jude’s repeated efforts to maim himself, and the small army of loving friends, elders and professionals who try desperately to help him.

Ms. Yanagihara’s prose is always ripe with modifiers, as when the book conjures rats that go “squeaking plumply underfoot”; is it possible for rats to squeak skinnily? A lot of this 720-page book is devoted to torrentially long and powerful descriptions, and without question, they pack a lot of power. But her mixing of metaphors makes for a mess. The phantoms that haunt Jude can be hyenas with “snapping, foaming jaws” at one moment, “banshees demanding his attention, snatching and tearing at him with their long, needley fingers” the next. The banshees and the hyenas appear on the same page, along with the lineup of human demons who have caused Jude to imagine them.

Willem and Judy, as he is often called, get a long way through life with a platonic relationship, even though they love each other deeply. For all its strong passions and intense, even ghoulish, medical curiosity, this book is conspicuously squeamish about sex. That reflects Jude’s terrible past, which is eventually exposed in all its ogre-filled detail. But there is far more physical attention paid to Jude’s many gruesome wounds, and his methods of inflicting them on himself, and the efforts of one superhumanly loving doctor to protect him from himself, than to any kind of physical pleasure.

Willem and Jude’s love for each other exists on a higher plane, with Willem as the loving parent Jude never had. Just to make sure that position is filled, Ms. Yanagihara also has a law professor, Harold, and his wife, Julia, formally adopt Jude when he is well into adulthood. Jude can hardly believe his good fortune when he gets a birth certificate that has parents’ names on it.

If, at times, Jude can’t believe his good fortune, readers may have the same problem. A description of the perfect country place built by Jude the Lawyer and Willem the Movie Star, with its long driveway, glass-cubed house, indoor and outdoor pools and enchanting wildflowers, throws Jude into raptures, because it’s “a place where beauty was so uncomplicated.” For a double dose of the vicarious, you are invited to press your nose to that glass and wait for Jude’s awful history to destroy him.

“A Little Life” eventually develops a relentless downhill trajectory. It might have had even more impact with fewer wild beasts prowling through fewer pages. But Ms. Yanagihara is still capable of introducing great shock value into her story to override its predictability. One major development here is gasp-inducingly unexpected, the stuff of life but also of melodrama. It may not lift the bleak mood, but it explains a lot about this voyeuristic book’s popular success.

A Little Life

By Hanya Yanagihara

720 pages. Doubleday. $30.

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A Little Life

63 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Before You Read

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 1

Part 1, Chapters 2-3

Part 2, Chapter 1

Part 2, Chapters 2-3

Part 3, Chapters 1-2

Part 3, Chapter 3

Part 4, Chapters 1-2

Part 4, Chapter 3

Part 5, Chapter 1

Part 5, Chapters 2-3

Part 6, Chapters 1-2

Part 6, Chapter 3

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Summary and Study Guide

A Little Life , published in 2015, is the second novel by American author Hanya Yanagihara. Shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, it was both a critical success and a best seller. The novel explores the life of Jude St. Francis , a talented and successful lawyer in New York City, as he struggles to cope with his traumatic childhood. Though it explores many themes, it is first and foremost a meditation on the psychology of trauma, depicting the ways that trauma can derail a life beyond recovery. Yanagihara stated in an article for Vulture that one of her primary goals was to “create a protagonist who never gets better,” and Jude St. Francis meets that description despite the tortured attempts of his loved ones to help him over many decades. (Yanagihara, Hanya. “How I Wrote My Novel: Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life .” Vulture , 28 Apr. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/04/how-hanya-yanagihara-wrote-a-little-life.html .)

Yanagihara has also stated that she wanted the novel to feel like a combination of two genres: naturalistic fiction and fairy tales. (Kavanagh, Adalena. “A Stubborn Lack of Redemption: An Interview with Hanya Yanagihara, Author of A Little Life.” Electric Literature , 21 May 2015, www.electricliterature.com/a-stubborn-lack-of-redemption-an-interview-with-hanya-yanagihara-author-of-a-little-life.) She accomplishes this impression by placing Jude and his friends in a wealthy New York backdrop, full of particular locations, workplaces, and customs, but also by including elements that seem disconnected from reality. For instance, although the novel is clearly set in the modern world, it contains no references or information that allow the reader to nail down particular dates, allowing for intense concentration on the characters’ lives rather than their historical context . Further, Jude’s childhood sometimes feels more like it belongs to a gothic 19th-century story than a contemporary one, such as during his early years, when he is raised by monks in a monastery. By uniting these two genres, Yanagihara creates a melodramatic tone that stands in distinction to the ironic detachment so popular in contemporary fiction.

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Plot Summary

Part 1 introduces four friends who have recently graduated from college: Jude St. Francis, Willem Ragnarsson , JB Marion, and Malcolm Irvine . While the four are close, differences in background sometimes create distances between them. Jude and Willem are both from modest backgrounds—Willem’s parents moved to Wyoming from Eastern Europe and worked as ranch hands until their deaths—while JB and Malcolm both come from wealthier families. JB’s parents are both Haitian American, while Willem is white and Malcolm has a Black father and white mother. JB is gay, while Willem is straight and Malcolm is still trying to figure out his sexuality. None of them knows anything specific about Jude’s background—his family history, his sexuality, or even his race; he is an elusive and mysterious character in Part 1. The other three men work toward their professional goals: Willem is striving to be an actor, JB a visual artist, and Malcolm an architect. At the end of Part 1, Jude injures himself badly in what looks suspiciously like a suicide attempt despite his denials, creating the first glimpse into his troubled psyche.

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Beginning in Part 2, the narrative shifts from focusing primarily on Jude’s three friends to focusing primarily on Jude. In this section, the reader not only learns that Jude habitually cuts himself, but also begins learning about his traumatic past. Abandoned by his parents outside a drugstore as a baby, he was taken in and raised by monks, who tolerated him at best and sexually abused him at worst. He also suffered a terrible injury that resulted in permanent spine damage that causes him leg pain and complications for the rest of his life. In the present day, Jude develops such a close relationship with one of his law professors, Harold, that Harold and his wife adopt Jude.

In Part 3, all four of the original friends’ careers are on the rise. Jude takes a job at a prestigious law firm, but his legs are getting worse, causing him so much pain that he often has to spend many consecutive days in his wheelchair. He purchases a loft apartment and hires Malcolm, now an architect with his own firm, to design and complete the renovations for it. JB, meanwhile, struggles with drug addiction despite his own successful career as a painter. His friends eventually stage an intervention, but JB insults Jude with a cruel impression of his limp, severing the friendship.

Part 4 is primarily devoted to a sexual relationship Jude enters into with a man named Caleb and that quickly becomes abusive. Caleb treats Jude’s disability with cruelty, accusing him of weakness, and eventually escalates to beating him. The worst, final beating leaves him unconscious and badly injured, needing hospitalization and bedrest for weeks afterward. Eventually, the trauma from this relationship becomes too much to bear, and Jude attempts suicide but is discovered before he dies. In flashbacks, the reader sees that one of the monks at the monastery, Brother Luke, convinced Jude to run away with him and eventually began regularly raping him while also using him as a sex slave for a series of male “clients” to fund the two as they moved from town to town across the country.

In Part 5, Jude and Willem transition from a friendship to a romantic relationship. As they attempt to work through Jude’s continued cutting and fear of physical intimacy, Jude’s physical health declines, and a bone infection in his legs leads to a necessary amputation of his lower legs. In flashbacks, the reader learns that after escaping Brother Luke, Jude was next sent to a home for parentless children, where counselors again sexually abused him. From there, he ran away and was forced to trade sexual favors in exchange for cross-country rides from truckers. During this sojourn, he was kidnapped by Dr. Traylor, who kept him imprisoned in his basement and raped him regularly. Jude only escaped after Traylor ran him over with his car, causing Jude’s lasting spinal issues. Part 5 ends with Willem picking up Malcolm and his wife ,Sophie, at a train station for a vacation weekend but getting struck by another vehicle.

Part 6 reveals that Willem, Malcolm, and Malcolm’s wife have all died. Jude finds himself unable to process or deal with his grief. Eventually, he decides to try to kill himself indirectly by starving himself to the point that his weakened and immunocompromised body can be killed by any passing infection. His friends intervene, however, and force him into hospitalization. He reacts in anger until one evening when he lashes out violently at his adoptive parents, Harold and Julia, and finds solace in the fact that they love him anyway; he cannot push them away despite his best attempts.

In Part 7, first-person narration from Harold reveals that Jude has killed himself. Despite reaching an equilibrium after Willem’s death at which he was able to resume his social life and interact with others healthily, he never recovered emotionally from the loss of Willem or from his childhood trauma. He left notes for his closest loved ones, including Harold and Julia, to whom he finally confessed the story of his past, apologizing for it as if they would think less of him upon learning it.

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A Little Life

“A Little Life” is a novel written by American author Hanya Yanagihara. It was published in 2015 and gained significant attention and critical acclaim.

The novel follows the lives of four friends, Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm, as they navigate their way through adulthood in New York City. The story primarily focuses on Jude St. Francis, a brilliant lawyer who carries deep emotional and physical scars from a traumatic childhood. The book delves into themes of trauma, friendship, love, and the lasting impact of one’s past.

Page Contents Toggle A Little Life Summary Introduction: A Little Life Main Characters Part 1: The Beginnings of Friendship Part 2: Navigating Adulthood Part 3: The Complexity of Relationships Part 4: Jude’s Hidden Trauma Part 5: The Power of Love and Friendship Part 6: Themes and Analysis Part 7: Conclusion A Little Life Summary

Introduction: A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life,” published in 2015, is an epic and emotionally charged novel that delves deep into the lives of four friends as they navigate the challenges and complexities of adulthood in the bustling heart of New York City. At its core, the novel is an exploration of friendship, trauma, love, and the enduring impact of one’s past.

Main Characters

• Jude St. Francis : The novel’s central character, Jude St. Francis, is a brilliant and enigmatic lawyer who carries with him profound emotional and physical scars from a traumatic childhood. He is the linchpin of the group of friends and the character around whom the narrative primarily revolves.
• Willem Ragnarsson : Willem Ragnarsson is Jude’s closest friend and confidant. He is an aspiring actor who shares a deep bond with Jude that transcends the boundaries of friendship. Willem’s journey is inextricably linked to Jude’s, and he plays a pivotal role in Jude’s life.
• JB Marion : JB Marion, a talented artist, is another member of the close-knit group. He’s known for his flamboyant personality and artistic pursuits, which have led to both success and turmoil in his life.
• Malcolm Irvine : Malcolm Irvine, an architect, is the fourth member of the group. He is known for his stability and reliability and offers a different perspective to the group dynamic.

Part 1: The Beginnings of Friendship

The novel introduces readers to the four friends, Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm, as they navigate the challenges of young adulthood in New York City. Despite their different backgrounds and career aspirations, they form a tight-knit and supportive group.

Early on, it becomes clear that Jude is the most enigmatic member of the group. He is reserved about his past and bears physical scars that hint at a traumatic history. His reluctance to discuss his personal life piques the curiosity of his friends.

Part 2: Navigating Adulthood

As the group enters adulthood, they each embark on their respective paths. Willem pursues a career in acting, JB delves deeper into the world of art, Malcolm becomes an architect, and Jude excels in law. Their careers become central to their identities and aspirations.

Despite his professional success, Jude’s personal life remains marked by struggle and secrecy. It becomes apparent that he is haunted by a deeply traumatic past, and his emotional scars run deep. His friends, especially Willem, are determined to provide him with the support he needs.

Part 3: The Complexity of Relationships

Jude and Willem’s friendship deepens over the years, and it becomes evident that their connection goes beyond ordinary friendship. Their relationship is characterised by unwavering loyalty and a profound sense of protectiveness.

JB experiences both success and tumult in his art career. His relationships, particularly with Malcolm, are tested as he grapples with his own insecurities and ambitions. JB’s journey explores the challenges of balancing personal and professional aspirations.

Malcolm’s role in the group is that of a stabilising force. He is there to support his friends through their ups and downs, offering a sense of consistency in their lives. His perspective provides a counterbalance to the group’s more volatile dynamics.

Part 4: Jude’s Hidden Trauma

As the narrative progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Jude’s past is a well-guarded secret. His moments of vulnerability and episodes of self-harm hint at deep trauma. The mystery surrounding his background and the true nature of his scars become central themes in the novel.

Willem’s devotion to Jude deepens as he learns more about Jude’s painful history. He becomes determined to protect and care for Jude, even as he grapples with the limitations of their relationship.

“A Little Life” unflinchingly explores the devastating impact of trauma on an individual’s life. It delves into how childhood trauma can cast a long shadow, affecting one’s ability to form healthy relationships and find solace in personal success.

Part 5: The Power of Love and Friendship

Jude’s journey is marked by a relentless quest for self-acceptance and healing. Despite his trauma, he finds solace in the love and friendship of his chosen family—Willem, JB, and Malcolm. Their unwavering support is a testament to the transformative power of love and friendship.

The relationship between Willem and Jude serves as the emotional core of the novel. Their enduring love and commitment to each other are both heartwarming and heartbreaking. Their complex bond challenges conventional notions of friendship and love.

Throughout the novel, “A Little Life” underscores the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable suffering. Jude’s ability to persevere despite his traumatic past is a testament to the strength that can be found in human connection and determination.

Part 6: Themes and Analysis

One of the central themes of “A Little Life” is the profound impact of friendship and love on an individual’s life. The novel explores how deep, authentic connections with others can provide solace, healing, and a sense of belonging, even in the face of overwhelming adversity.

The novel delves into the enduring effects of trauma and the incredible resilience of the human spirit. It illustrates how trauma can shape a person’s life and relationships but also emphasises the capacity for growth and healing.

Identity is a complex and multifaceted theme in the novel. Each character grapples with their own sense of self, influenced by their past, relationships, and personal aspirations. Jude’s struggle for self-acceptance is at the heart of this theme.

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A Little Life MP3 CD – Unabridged, November 3, 2015

• Language English
• Publisher Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio
• Publication date November 3, 2015
• Dimensions 5.25 x 0.6 x 6.75 inches
• ISBN-10 1511358602
• ISBN-13 978-1511358606
• See all details

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This breathtaking novel about four friends who move to New York was named a multi-award finalist.

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Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio; Unabridged edition (November 3, 2015)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1511358602
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1511358606
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.6 x 6.75 inches
• #2,197 in Asian American Literature & Fiction
• #9,471 in Books on CD
• #16,196 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)

About the author

Hanya yanagihara.

Hanya Yanagihara lives in New York City.

http://instagram.com/hanyayanagihara

https://instagram.com/alittlelifebook/

https://www.instagram.com/toparadisenovel/

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A Little Life

Hanya yanagihara, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

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Delbert 'del' ploen.

Ploen, Delbert "Del" age 91, of Chaska. Del's passing on Monday, May 20, 2024 was the peaceful end to an incredibly beautiful life that all who loved him could've hoped for. With his loving wife at his side, he passed peacefully and beautifully. As his family watched Alzheimer's take a little more of him each day for a number of years, it would never take away his gentleness or his loving and beautiful heart. A Celebration of Life will be held on Monday, August 5th from 4:30-7:30pm at the Chaska Event Center, 3210 Chaska Blvd., Chaska. The family will receive friends beginning at 4:30 PM with a memorial service at 5:30 PM. The open house will resume after the service as well. Del was born on May 1, 1933, in Green Island, Iowa to Albert and Juanita (Mielk) Ploen. He was welcomed by his older sister, Cleo, and his baby brother Ken was born two years later. Del graduated from Clinton High School in Clinton, Iowa in 1951, and then went on to study at Iowa State University, graduating in 1955 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry. During his time earning that degree, he spent a summer in the Pacific Northwest fighting forest fires. Additionally, during his time at Iowa State, he joined the ROTC and entered the US Air Force, flying jets and becoming both a Captain and Navigator. Del was a man of adventure who deeply loved the outdoors. Whether being alone in nature, or with those he most loved, the world around him brought him incredible joy. From a very young age, fishing, hunting, and exploring was in his blood - something he started doing in boyhood with his family and would carry as a favorite pastime throughout his entire life - with family and friends, but especially, his four sons. His first marriage to Peggy Addison blessed him with four sons that he loved and treasured beyond words. Their own love of the outdoors and adventure was nurtured by their father. Be it fishing, hunting, golfing, skiing, or just exploring nature together, sometimes in the GMC motorhome, his love of life became theirs, and they shared incredible experiences together. Ever an entrepreneur and a man eager to try new things, he had early business ventures in Iowa as a young father. He and friends owned a campground and even a mini golf course for a time. But his biggest venture awaited him in Minnesota. In 1967 he moved his family to Minnesota where he co-founded Quali Tech. Over the years he nurtured and built Quali Tech into a successful company that did amazing things for the food, agriculture, and environmental industries. His four sons all went to work with him and furthered it when it was time for him to hand over the reins. He always referred to the employees as his "Quali Tech Family". His final title was CEO Emeritus. Del was joined in marriage to Kay (Antonsen) in 1991 which also welcomed her two children into his life. His love and generosity will be treasured forever. Del and Kay enjoyed many wonderful adventures and years together, including trips to many parts of the world as well as simpler time spent with friends and family. Sometimes Del's dear friends accompanied him on adventures and added fun in many parts of the world as well. With Quali Tech being warmly welcomed into Chaska and the surrounding community, Del wanted to give back by volunteering in numerous civic and industry organizations. He held offices and board positions in many of them, including the Chaska Rotary Club, Ridgeview Medical Center, Ridgeview Foundation, Chaska Chamber of Commerce, and Christmas in May among others. He was honored with both the Rotary Club's George C. Klein Award and the Chaska Chamber's Spirit of Chaska Award. Del is survived by his devoted wife Kay, his four loving sons Jeff (Brenda), Mark (Arlette), Kye (Laura Karstens), and Cory (Brenda), and his bonus children Jennifer Liddicoat and Tim (Danielle) Liddicoat. The large blended family includes grandchildren: Lindsay, Saren, Brittany (Jake Munger), Devon (Matt Morris), Brett, Brandon (Kate), Marissa, McKenzie (Patrick Erichsen), Connor (Maria), Alexis, Carter, Bella Liddicoat-Menzel, Michael Liddicoat, and Aurora Liddicoat, along with great-grandchildren Taysia, Estelle, Logan, Olivia and a new baby due in September. He is also survived by his sister-in-law, Janet (Ken) Ploen, and Kay's family. Del was preceded in death by his parents Albert and Juanita Ploen, his sister Cleo (John) North, and his brother Kenneth. Our family is thankful for the loving care he received over the past four months at Riley Crossing in Chanhassen and Auburn Manor in Chaska, as well as Park Nicollet Hospice (Nurse Dayna). Their tender care was appreciated more than words can express. While he will be deeply missed, his family is comforted in knowing Del is at peace and his struggle is over. In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to Ducks Unlimited or Auburn Homes. bertasfh.com

Published on June 2, 2024

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