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cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity.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.
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[THE ELEVENTH APARTMENT had only one closet, but it did have a sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony, from which he could see a man sitting across the way, outdoors in only a T-shirt and shorts even though it was October, smoking](Picador, 10 March 2016, first published 10 March 2015, 720 pages, paperback, borrowed from my library)
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I knew A Little Life was going to break my heart but I still read it, even when things got so painful I couldn't handle reading another word, I still immersed myself in this story.
For a book that reduced to me to a shaking, sobbing, snot-encrusted wreck I'm struggling to find something to say.
There is great sadness in this book, the bleakness is unbearable at times. Jude's plight, the descriptions of his physical injuries, mental anguish and the flashbacks to the physical and sexual abuse he suffered are hard to get on board with. A Little Life is not for everyone and the sadness may be too much to handle.
However, there is a lot of love in the book as well, between the four friends, between Jude and Willem, and between Jude and the people who care so much for him. Jude is a tragic figure, the tragedy that he cannot see himself other than through the eyes of his abusers and he is disgusted with what he sees. I got so frustrated at times I wanted to shake him. Well done to the author for making characters so alive and raw.
I knew how A Little Life was going to end and it broke my heart into a zillion pieces. It was worth every tear. This may be one of the best books I've ever read.
