A Little Life

In 2015 Hanya Yanagihara, author and editor-in-chief of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, spoke to a packed room at The White Hart Inn in Salisbury, Conn., on the success of her novel, “A Little Life.” She was — especially in an old New England inn surrounded by old New England preps — savvy, stylish, sardonic. “She was fabulous,” one guest summed it up, and having not actually read the novel, turned to me to ask, “is the book fabulous?” I could only reply, “It’s not that kind of book.”

Despite being the certified book of the year in 2015, the kind of novel that not only winds up as a finalist for the National Book Award but also on Andy Cohen’s Instagram, “A Little Life” is so unrelentingly, fantastically grim it's nearly operatic. An account of continuous child sexual abuse and torture resulting in deep-set wounds in adulthood — both psychological and physically self-inflicted — “A Little Life” is the best-seller still deemed unfilmable. But not unstageable, according to Ivo van Hove. Despite being in his 60s, the Belgian director is still the bad boy of theater, luring and repelling audiences in equal measure with his stark, broad and extreme interpretations of classics like “West Side Story,” “All About Eve” and “The Crucible.” Like vampire plays, van Hove’s works are cold to the touch and brimming with rage, but it is perhaps only on the stage, where events are both interpretive and immediate, that Yanagihara’s harsh fairy tale can unfold.

“A Little Life” will have its U.S. premiere at BAM (The Brooklyn Academy of Music)  in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Oct. 20.