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A Little Life,
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Demis
I feel the author deliberately kept the years ambiguous, wiping each chapter clean of all traces of any defining cultural / technological landmarks that would place a scene in a particular year. The entire story exists in a time that feels a lot like now (or now-ish) as a result - felt like a very deliberate ambiguity, and another of the things that gave the book a rather unique vibe. Perhaps the point is the time isn't important - keeps the focus on the characters, and the idea that the issues dealt with were timeless.
Mike Bevel
10,000 years, which is about as long as it took to read this book
Aoife
After listening to an interview online with the author, she commented briefly on this.
She said she deliberately didn't have a specific time included because she wanted the book to be about the characters, their friendships, their struggles, and she didn't want any defining period of time to distract from that.
She spoke about reading literature herself set in New York where an author would sometimes insert a sentence like 'and then 9/11 happened' and how she as an author found this to be lazy writing as the expectation is then placed upon the reader to fill in the blanks about how this event would affect the characters and their lives.
I think it was a brave move.
She said she deliberately didn't have a specific time included because she wanted the book to be about the characters, their friendships, their struggles, and she didn't want any defining period of time to distract from that.
She spoke about reading literature herself set in New York where an author would sometimes insert a sentence like 'and then 9/11 happened' and how she as an author found this to be lazy writing as the expectation is then placed upon the reader to fill in the blanks about how this event would affect the characters and their lives.
I think it was a brave move.
sendann
they all have cell phones all the time, are unphased when a friend is said to be "transitioning", a mainstream actor is mostly unharmed when he comes out as gay, it takes place in fairy tale perpetually liberal new yorkalandia.
Betty Burkett
When all is said and done, I couldn’t care less what the time frame was. I only know that I have never been as emotionally involved or affected as I was by the people in this book. It was all so real to me. I’m 72 years old and this has tied my #1 favorite book, The Prince of Tides.
Trudy
I think it's an eternal present -- the whole thing, including Jude's childhood (with the reference to Brother Luke not allowing him on the computer) has a vaguely early-21st-century feel, but it's been very deliberately scrubbed clean of any references to technology, politics, or world events (or even New York events!) that would root it in a specific time. So even though it covers a span of 50 years (if you include the flashbacks to childhood), it always feels like it's sort of now-ish or in the recent past or very near future. Although I liked the book a lot, I personally HATED this aspect of it -- I'm a writer and avid reader of historical fiction, and even in contemporary novels I want those historical markers that set the book in the context of what's happening in the world the characters live in. Time makes a huge difference. A character coming out as gay or bisexual is a completely different experience in 2015 than it would have been in 1985 and I hate that it's written as though history makes no difference and all that matters are the characters' inner lives. Inner lives are shaped in the context of the outer world.
Rachel
Jude says his childhood was more typical of the C19 than the C21 which means it must be at least 2053 by the time the book ends..
Dana Croatt
The font that was mentioned early in the novel, Archer, was designed in 2001 and released for commercial use a few years later.
Susann Codish
This answer contains spoilers…
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Adam Dunn
When he was with the brother in the motel there was a reference that he wasn't allowed to go on the computer, which means the book ends in the future or possibly, as someone else said, in an alternate reality
Jennifer Murphy
They mention that they left their phones downstairs when they are locked out on Lispenard Street. The fact that rent anywhere in Manhattan is nearly impossible once cell phones are popular makes me think that the author played loose and fast with time.
Steve
2K's+ I would guess. I didn't notice it much because it didn't seem important.
Damien Roberts
I feel like it is supposed to be purposely ambiguous to keep the reader focused on the characters as opposed to other things such as time or place. Based on interviews I've seen with Yanagihara and her debut TPITT I really do gather her fascination is with people more than anything.
Racheal Kalisz
What a great question. I am thinking the end was pretty close to present day...I just keep trying to think of Jude growing up in the monastery and the time of that?!
Susannah
Oh, I think most of it (when they are adults) takes place in the very near future and probably ends somewhere around 2050. I imagine Jude is with Brother Luke in the motels in the late 80's early 90's, and the reference to the computer is not throwaway at all, but rather proof that Brother Luke was an 'early adopter' who successfully channeled the internet for the trafficking children. Otherwise how would he find Jude all these slimy doctors to go to, or find consistent clients?? By this logic, they're in college in the early aughts.
Samantha
They have cells phones in the beginning as it says that JB's receptionist job at the magazine has bad cell service, and I believe Jude says he grew up in the 21st century. So I felt it started out in our time and then must have moved farther into the 21st century.
Greg
Early on, there is a reference that Jude likes the new health care bill and I think that was passed in 2012. And early on all the guys leave their phones in an apartment. Then years pass. So is most of the book in the future?
Chuckles
Early in the book, Jude and Willem mention growing up in the early 21st century.
Jeannie
It's definitely after 9/11 because Harold mentions that Jude would not have been able to take his razor blades on a plane.
Jordan McAuley
There are references to online, online gaming and streaming video: 'he had rarely been allowed to go online' (p. 90); 'into what was new in the worlds of online gaming' (p. 283), 'and when he had looked online,' (p. 410); 'when they went online' (p. 495); 'so he could wake and watch the ceremony online' (p. 574); 'I later looked it up online' (p. 715).
Dana
The summary on the back of the book reads, "...A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century..."
Janet
That was one of the issues that I didn't care for. Zero cultural touchstones. Does it begin in present day? End in present day? I suspect the latter, since people are still texting and there are no flying cars.
Tony Hassan
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Kristen
They refer to cell phones and texts in the first chapter
Laura
There is a reference to laptops during Jude''s time at college when he lived with CM so this part must have been early 21st century.
Micklemas
Some interesting responses about how the author was deliberately vague with it all. I see the point but its perhaps inevitable we will try to place this book in time. I am only near the beginning, but 2 guys making little money are able to move into an apartment (albeit a very shabby one) in Manhattan immediately makes me think this was part set a few decades previously. Then again, an openness towards homosexuality contradicts that. Enjoyable so far though. I guess characters matter, not place in time.
Matthew
The author does play loose with time as mentioned by another reader, instead focusing on the relationships of the characters. When Malcolm moves into his dorm room with Jude when Jude arrives at his college dorm towards the beginning of the book, the author references Malcolm moving in with his "television and phones and computers... and flotillas of digital gadgetry..." A reference to "digital gadgetry" to me indicates things like digital cameras and iPod players, which Jude had none of. This to me indicates that at that time in the book, it was probably around 2004-2006. Subtracting 18 years from that, then the main characters were all born somewhere around 1987.
Barb McCarthy
I read this question just as I was beginning the book which helped me to track some of the references other readers have made. ( I missed mention of the new Health Care Law) That said, there are no other significant time references. Given the history of technology, the book would have to end in the future. My only question would be, if she was so careful not to land the characters in any one time period, why did she make the technology references at all?
struggle-fortress
Someone on Twitter or in a review said the book was set in "an eternal 2007", which seems accurate.
Scott
Out of left field, but it struck me that Yanagihara wrote a bisexual character in Willem, but no one ever uses the term, and Willem himself, even in his forties, is weirdly struggling to define whether he is gay or straight. This places the book at least in the EARLY 2000's, maybe even the late 90's, because who doesn't understand what a bisexual is in 2015?
Jennifer
I assumed Jude was 51 in the present-ish, so childhood in the 70's, teen in the 80's, college in the 90's. Some of the details don't fit that, but that was my vague assumption.
Giuseppe Di Caprio
I think the most recent events in the book are set at the time it was written. At a dinner when Jude was Harold's assistant, Julia says that she's studying H5N1, that was detected first in 1997.
Natella
In my head it was present time. Or maybe anywhere from 2000s. but really can be placed any time.
Mary Perkins
I haven't read everyone's answers yet, but one thing I noticed was that Willem and Jude's trip to Hanoi mentioned a lot of bicycles. I haven't been to Hanoi, but I have been to Ho Chi Minh and I feel like they've transitioned away from bicycles to motorbikes. Basically, I feel like bicycles would've been more appropriate to several decades ago, which is not quite the time period I had pictured for the book. BUT like I said, I haven't been to Hanoi and I've not done any research on it either. This was just something I thought could be a possible anachronism.
Liz
I agree with most commenters that it's a sort of vague now + future. Brother Luke has a laptop computer (he took his computer with him when he left) when Jude was 8 years old, Jude and his friends text each other in college, so Jude is a millenial, which means the book ends in the future.
Jill Mackenzie
lol....I have wondered the same thing....but so interesting that she has not mentioned the date.....it's the words in this book that mean the most....incredible read !!
Stop33
I have only just started this novel, but I assumed it is set in the present, as so far there is nothing to indicate otherwise. There is mention of cell phones and texting. One of the artists with whom JB shares a studio is working on a photography project and "had the two thousands done".
Emily
They're in their 20s in 2011, according to the first few chapters. And in that same general time they have cell phones and digital cameras and JB's peers did videography in art school. So it seems like it must start in the present.
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