To Paradise
 Cover of the first U.S. edition | |
| Author | Hanya Yanagihara |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | January 11th, 2022 |
| Pages | 720 |
| ISBN | 0-385-54793-5 |
| OCLC | 11199140637 |
| 813/.6 | |
| LC Class | 2021943460 |
To Paradise is a 2022 novel by American novelist Hanya Yanagihara. The book, Yanagihara's third, takes place in an alternate version of New York City, and has three sections, respectively set in 1893, 1993, and 2093. Though a bestseller, the novel received polarized reviews from critics.
Writing and development[edit]
Yanagihara began writing the book in 2016, after a conversation with her friend Jared Hohlt about the Henry James novel Washington Square.[1] Hohlt and Yanagihara discussed how the novel would change if it were re-imagined to feature same-sex marriage.[1] Yanagihara found Washington Square appealing due to its depiction of the contentious relationship between a father and daughter, and characterizes the father, Sloper, as "one of James's most honest characters".[1] After the conversation with Hohlt, Yanagihara began writing a work set in an alternate reality in which same-sex marriage was made legal in New York in the eighteenth century.[1]
Before beginning to write the piece inspired by Washington Square, Yanagihara had begun writing two other stories, respectively set in a time near the present and in a dystopian future.[1] American novelist Michael Cunningham served as an influence on To Paradise, both through conversations with Yanagihara and through her interest in his work.[2] Cunningham's novel Specimen Days has a three-act structure set in the past, present, and future of New York City, and Yanagihara has said that To Paradise is "to some extent in conversation with" Specimen Days.[2] To combine the three stories she had developed into a single novel, Yanagihara set each in the same townhouse adjacent Washington Square Park.[1]
Though the final portion of the book takes place in a future version of New York City in which climate change and pandemics have devastated the city, Yanagihara had written most of the novel before the COVID-19 pandemic began.[1] Pandemics feature prominently in the novel as Yanagihara is "interested in disease".[3] To guarantee the pandemic in the portion of To Paradise set in the future was accurate, she spoke with virologists at Rockefeller University,[2] and the book was read by David Morens, of the National Institutes of Health.[3]
Yanagihara wrote the novel intending to challenge the reader's conceptions of the United States, and to leave citizens of the country with "more questions than they had going in".[4]
Publication[edit]
Yanagihara sold the book to publisher Doubleday in April 2021.[5] Doubleday paid more than US$1 million for the rights to publish the novel.[1] Through New York outlet The Cut, Yanagihara, soon after the sale, revealed some details about the book's contents, including its three-part structure.[6] Yanagihara revealed the novel's cover on Instagram in August 2021.[7] The cover incorporates the 1898 painting I'okepa, Hawaiian Fisher Boy by Dutch painter Hubert Vos, and was created by designer Na Kim.[7]
Reception[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
The novel polarized critics, with literary review aggregator Book Marks reporting 16 "Rave" or "Positive" and 16 "Mixed" or "Pan" reviews, of 32 total.[8]
Critics praised the book as "ambitious".[9][10] Gish Jen, in The New York Times, wrote that the novel "[tackled] major American questions and [answered] them in an original, engrossing way".[10] Maggie Doherty qualified her praise for the novel's ambition writing that despite Yanagihara's goals, the book was nevertheless her "least successful".[11]
In a negative review written for The Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks contrasted To Paradise with Yanagihara's second novel, A Little Life, writing that despite being "as big and grueling and terror-strewn as its predecessor", To Paradise "is strangely lifeless". Sacks further wrote that, unlike A Little Life, To Paradise is "boring".[12] Sacks also questioned the role of including an alternative history of same-sex marriage in the United States, referring to it as "just randomly switching stuff around".[12] Sacks compared the presence and purpose of the speculative history unfavorably to explorations of gender, sexuality, and related themes in other works including The Left Hand of Darkness and The Sparsholt Affair.[12]
Sales[edit]
The novel was the top-selling newly released hardcover book the week ending January 15th, 2022, with 16,000 copies sold.[13] The novel was the top-selling hardcover fiction book on The New York Times Best Seller list the week of 23 January 2022.[14]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h Max, D.T. (8 January 2022). "Hanya Yanagihara's Audience of One". The New Yorker. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- ^ a b c Simon, Scott (8 January 2022). "Hanya Yanagihara's 'To Paradise' is one of the most highly anticipated novels of 2022". NPR. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
- ^ a b Wheatley, Jane (3 December 2021). "Novelist Hanya Yanagihara on the inspiration for her new novel, To Paradise". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- ^ Behnke, Emily (19 January 2022). "A Q&A with Hanya Yanagihara, Author of January's Top Indie Next List Pick". the American Booksellers Association. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ^ Deahl, Rachel (16 April 2021). "Book Deals: Week of April 19, 2021". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- ^ Singh-Kurtz, Sangeeta (14 April 2021). "The Author of A Little Life Has a New Book". The Cut. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- ^ a b Temple, Emily (4 August 2021). "Check out the cover for Hanya Yanagihara's next novel". Literary Hub. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- ^ "Book Marks reviews of To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara". Book Marks. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ^ Cain, Hamilton (11 January 2022). "To Paradise". Harvard Review. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
- ^ a b Jen, Gish (7 January 2022). "After 'A Little Life', Hanya Yanagihara's Big New Novel Rewrites History". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
- ^ Doherty, Maggie (15 January 2022). "Trouble in Paradise". Air Mail. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
- ^ a b c Sacks, Sam (7 January 2022). "Fiction: 'To Paradise' Review". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 April 2022.
- ^ "Print Unit Sales Fell 3% in Mid-January". Publishers Weekly. 21 January 2022. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
- ^ "Hardcover Fiction Books - Best Sellers - Books - Jan. 30, 2022 - The New York Times". The New York Times. 23 January 2022. Retrieved 28 April 2022.