Monday, May 23, 2022

An Evening with Hanya Yanagihara

Being a fledgeling writer, it's always good to get out there and listen to the more experienced of the flock. 

And Hanya Yanagihara is a bit of a hero of mine. 

So when I read about her being in conversation with Benjamin Law at the Capitol Theatre as a part of the Melbourne Writer's Festival - I had to get a ticket and go and have a listen. 

Hanya Yanigahara you ask. She wrote a housebrick of a book called A Little Life a few years ago. I think I have my mother's copy and I received it at the end of 2015 - the Christmas we lost my niece. At the time, I was told to maybe give myself some time before I read it as it's a pretty intense book. Some call it depressing. Some call it trauma porn. Me, I got a lot out of the story of four men, friends from college - Jude, Willem, Malcolm and JB and their trials and tribulations - in particular Jude, who  is one of the most broken characters ever written. I read the book over the Summer of 2016. I gave it a year. And like most thick books, there was a lot to digest. Like Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True or Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, this spans decades and experiences. The prose is incredible. The story intense. 

I wanted to meet the author. 

So I took myself into town and piled into the Capitol Theatre in all its glory. I love this space, especially as it was nearly demolished a few years ago, only to be saved with some last minute intervention. It was worth the ticket price to stare at the ceiling in all its Art Deco glory for a little while. 


I'm so glad I went along to this. Yanagihara was generous with her time, her thoughts and her insights into what it is to write a tome like this, and her new book - also a big thick book, To Paradise

She was in conversation with Benjamin Law, who I always find entertaining, and they skirted the boundaries of topics including the pandemic, what it is to write the future, how it is being a Booker winning author,  and some of her writing habits. The talk has made me curious to get into To Paradise sooner rather than later, but at 702 pages, I have some other reading to do first.  (But I have to finish my book group book and the one I've nearly finished first).

She also gave some insights into her background and early life, as a Japanese-American, her family have lived on Hawaii for decades. She has an interesting take on being "the other", something which A Little Life has as one of its themes. 

It was a great listen. She and Law had a great rapport, having met each other at the Sydney Writer's Festival six years ago. She was generous with her insights and gave us a look into what it is to hold down a full time job and write a tome in a pandemic (Yes, she has a 'proper job', working as an editor for a magazine.)

She gave me some hope. 

And it was wonderful to be surrounded by booky people once again. 

I didn't take my copy of either of her books to get signed - partly as I'm not supposed to be lifting over five kilograms for the next month. Instead, I scurred to the tram stop and made my way home. It did feel good to have a bit of normality back. And good, interesting, inspiring normality at that. 

Today's song:

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