There is a plague ripping through the city – AIDS, although it is never named. "Book II: Lipo-Wao-Nahele," set in New York in 1993, features another version of David Bingham, a paralegal who has Hawaiian royal blood running through his veins. David lives with the older Charles Griffith, a lawyer. How old is the gentleman? One-and-forty.” David might placate his grandfather and marry Charles, or he may listen to his heart and follow Edward west. Grandfather Bingham pushes David to marry in his class: “I have had an offer of marriage for you … A good family – the Griffiths, of Nantucket. Then there is the mysterious Edward Bishop, a penniless musician whom David adores.
Grandfather Nathaniel Bingham runs the most respected bank in New York. His grandchildren, including David, the weakest Bingham, are born into the same high class. Their butler, Adams, is a proletariat.
The characters, many of them gay men, are divided into socioeconomic classes. Review: Jami Attenberg shares the joy, heartbreak of the writer's life in honest new memoir This portion of the book is reminiscent of Henry James and Edith Wharton in language and setting, and incorporates period artifacts, including the newly constructed Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Square Park and hansoms, which glide across the avenues of Manhattan. "Book I: Washington Square" opens in New York City in 1893, right after the Civil War, which Yanagihara calls the War of Rebellion.
Yanagihara ("A Little Life") cleverly presents characters with the same names who appear in different roles in each book: There are multiple David Binghams and Charles Griffiths, and Adams is always a butler. Hanya Yanagihara's new novel, the epic tome "To Paradise" (Doubleday, 720 pp., ★★★★ out of four, out Tuesday), is a re-imagination of New York City in 1893 and 1993, and a forecast of 2093, presented uniquely in three books with three different plot lines. Watch Video: New book on the Hollywood Walk of Fame meant to inspire
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