Published by Doubleday on 10 Mar 2015
Goodreads
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cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity.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 a word: harrowing.
This story was relentless. There were so many times I had to put the book down, sometimes because I was sick to my stomach, sometimes because I wanted to hold onto the respite of a tender moment for as long as possible, putting off the devastation I knew was to come but still couldn’t fathom. It was a total obliteration. Not in a glorious burst, but by a quiet disappearance into myself. Never have I been so consumed by a story.
It was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn’t know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tries to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It’s so sad, and yet we all do it. We all cling to it; we all search for something to give us solace.
To be honest, I had a hard time finding a silver lining, so I looked to other people who seemed like they found it. It still feels more like tragedy to me than anything, but I open myself to reframe it as a story about kindness, that despite the inevitability of life, we continue to believe, want, hope, we do what we can for ourselves and for our friends, showing up for them even when they don’t show up for themselves, endlessly.
It was a night of impossible things, and he fought to stay awake, to be conscious and alert for as long as possible, to enjoy and repeat to himself everything that had happened to him, a lifetime’s worth of wishes coming true in a few brief hours.
I struggle to describe this book as a “great” book. It’s miserable. It’s visceral. It’s an unquestionably notable book, but I wouldn’t necessarily push a recommendation. It’s a lot to put yourself through. It’s a book that I think readers need to get to on their own terms, if they decide to get to it at all. So here I am, letting you know that it exists if you didn’t already, leaving the rest for you to decide.
(Hi friends! This review was originally posted on my bookstagram and in a monthly reading recap, but I wanted to share it in its own post here so that I could look back on some of my most memorable reads of 2020 more easily. I will be sharing a few more old 2020 reviews throughout the month.)