Ms. Yanagihara's A Little Life is one of my all time favorite books. Her latest novel is going to be published early 2022. In anticipation of that release, I wanted to read her debut novel, The People in the Trees. While I did not enjoy it as much as A Little Life, it was interesting and well written.
In the book, Norton Perina signs up with an anthropologist upon completion of medical school. They go to the remote Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in search of a rumored lost tribe. What they find is a group of forest dwellers they dub "The Dreamers," who turn out to be fantastically long-lived but progressively more senile. Perina suspects the source of their longevity is a hard-to-find turtle; unable to resist the possibility of eternal life, he kills one and smuggles some meat back to the States. He scientifically proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize, but he soon discovers that its miraculous property comes at a terrible price. Perina encounters some personal problems when he returns to the island and adopts some of the members of the lost tribe. This part of the book brings up controversy in his life. The People in the Trees is so well written you will think that there's truth in the science behind the longevity cure.
I will continue to bid my time until To Paradise is published.
