TO PARADISE

Hanya Yanagihara's long-awaited third novel is a sprawling epic that refuses easy categorization. It consists of three distinct sections, each set 100 years apart in different versions of America. Narrator Edoardo Ballerini expertly voices David, a wealthy young man in a homophobia-free 1890s New York, who falls in love with a poor music teacher. Kurt Kanazawa's melancholic voice amplifies the pain and ambivalence of another David, a Hawaiian man living with his older white lover in 1990s New York, who is reflecting on his fraught relationship with his father, voiced by Feodor Chin. The last section, set in a bleak dystopian future, concerns a grandfather (BD Wong) and his granddaughter (Catherine Ho). All five narrators give superb performances, bringing listeners deep inside these complex emotional lives. Wong's performance merits a particular mention. This is a once-in-a-lifetime listen. L.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2022]