Charlie is a survivor of the 2070 pandemic, and the drugs used to save her life have left her less able to understand social cues and to read emotions. The later period follows Charles’ granddaughter, Charlie, though it takes a while for this connection to be apparent. The earlier period is depicted in emails or letters from New York to England from yet another Charles, which begin in 2043 and describe the disease-ridden years of the 20th century, where each new wave of illness becomes an excuse for increasingly totalitarian methods of control by the state. The third section is a different style again, set in the future, but flicking between around 20.

It is only in this section that the 700 page novel lost its firm grip on me slightly. This section moves slower, and is sad and mournful, in part because in New York Charles’ friends are slowly dying from a disease that remains unnamed, but parallels AIDS. We then follow David through his childhood in Hawaii with his father and grandmother. The first is about another David Bingham, this one a junior paralegal secretly dating his boss, the wealthy Charles Griffiths. The second section is itself divided into two parts. History has been rewritten, and Yanagihara has tackled class divide, true love, arranged marriages, inherited wealth and family legacy, yet you are only a third of the way through the novel. It is in part a love story, as David chooses between an arranged marriage with the wealthy Charles Griffiths, and the musical and romantic Edward, who David loves, but who could be too good to be true. We follow David Bingham, who was born into a wealthy elite family, and lives with his grandfather, Nathaniel, in a grand house in Washington Square. In the Free States same-sex marriage is legal and commonplace, despite it sharing class boundaries and various rules and etiquettes with real 19th century New York. In an alternative imagination of history, New York is in the ‘Free States’ of America, which have seceded from the rest of the US. Except New York is not quite as we recognise it. The first section is set in New York in 1893. It is a tripartite novel, following three distinct time periods, each with its own set of characters. It is wonderfully immersive, with the rare quality of allowing you to forget you’re reading at all. However, it’s fast paced and immensely gripping, and I found myself hooked from around the second page. To Paradise, like Yanagihara’s Booker-shortlisted second novel, is a massive tome, and picking it up for the first time can feel a little daunting. It has already been labelled a ‘masterpiece’ by The Observer. To Paradise is the third and most recent book by the author of the much loved A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara.

Hanya yanagihara to paradise paperback