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.
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