I revised this based on comments from my sister, Robin, and my husband, Joe, who witnessed all this and corrected my faulty memory.
I was looking for something to read at Morgantown's downtown library on June 1. I've been reading novels from The Washington Post' s "50 Notable Works of Fiction" in the November 20th edition of the paper, plus "The 10 Standouts of 2022 ." I've read three of the fiction standouts, one of the non-fiction standouts, and I had read three of the other "50 Notable Works of Fiction." I found Hanya Yanagihara's To Paradise on the shelf. I was put off by its 704 page length, but I had three weeks, with a renewal for another three, so why not?
Joe and I were planning on a vacation in June. We planned for the 11th and 12th with my sister in Greenbelt, Maryland, the 13th in Baltimore County where we planned a lunch and dinner with long-time friends, and then a week in New York City visiting with friends and family. The original plan was to come back tomorrow, Thursday, June 22.
Yanagihara's book is in three parts: 1893, 1993 and 2093. They all take place in a house on Washington Square in Manhattan, with connections in the second and third parts to Hawaii, and all the people seem to be related, in fact, there is a character named David Bingham in each section of the book, sometimes more than one character with that name. Most of the men are gay, and even in 1893, in accepted same-gender marriages. This kept my interest, but as I went along, the plots got darker and more involved.
We met Seema and Chris for lunch Monday in Howard County, not far from my sister, in a vast development that didn't exist when I lived in Maryland. Seema and I dated in high school, and just when things were looking serious in college, I couldn't handle it. Chris lived with me and six other men in a house near Hopkins our sophomore year, and we shared an apartment junior year. He lives in Howard County with his wife. They have two grown children. Seema lives where my mother lived in suburban Baltimore after my father died; her boyfriend of many years lives in a restored old neighborhood near downtown Baltimore. It was great seeing both of them. Joe has met them both. Robin and Seema were friends and Robin knows Chris from way back.
Tuesday I thought we would take it easy. We were driving up to Baltimore and meeting my friends for lunch and other friends for dinner on Wednesday. I thought we would have time to stop at the cemetery to see where my parents are buried. I try to go every year. We were all a little restless, and since we were in Prince George's County, we thought to visit the county seat, Upper Marlboro, still a kind of sleepy southern town when most of the county is just an extension of Washington, D.C.
We visited Darnall's Chance, a house museum dating from 1742. It was closed, but Robin knocked on the door and the people who worked for the Park Service offered us a brief tour for two dollars each. Robin gave them ten dollars and the three of us looked over the house. The guides also recommended a restaurant up the hill, a few blocks out of the center of town. I had a mushroom and Swiss cheese burger and a bag of Utz's potato chips, food I normally don't eat. We napped back home, had a light dinner and watched Jeopardy and ABC News, which Robin has on DVR.
I continued reading my book, although as I got into the last part, it became more and more disturbing. Charles, one of the characters, writes letters to James in "New Britain" between 2043 and 2089. There are a series of pandemics, with ever harsher rules set out by the government. In Manhattan, the East and Hudson Rivers periodically flood the city; it's so hot by April that one must wear a "cooling suit" to go out in the air.
I tried to sleep, but I felt edgy and nervous, then chilled, although it wasn't cold in the house. About 1:30, I started throwing up-a lot, and frequently, going on for hours. I looked up 24-hour walk-in clinics, but I couldn't find one nearby. Robin and Joe were fast asleep. Joe woke up about 6:30, and I was explaining to him what had happened, when I felt another wave coming on and ran to the bathroom. I didn't make it. Joe found me sprawled on the floor in the hallway. I had passed out. Robin woke up, made a few calls and told us which emergency room to go to.
The hospital was what seems to be the typical nightmarish American hospital - long waits, dingy looking, unhelpful staff. The did a bunch of tests, pumped me with fluids and sent me back after 1 P.M., six hours after we arrived. By then, the waiting room was standing room only. Robin and Joe were sure the problem was that I ate an eight-ounce burger, something I just about never do. Robin cancelled the meals Wednesday with my friends online, and I canceled the hotel later. I was a wreck. We ended up canceling New York, involving a series of phone calls. We stayed at Robin's until Friday the 16th, when we were strong enough to eat regularly and drive home. By then, Robin was feeling dizzy and Joe wasn't feeling too well either. I drove all the way home Friday, while Joe mostly slept. He later took one of the anti-nausea pills I had gotten from the local pharmacy in Greenbelt.
In To Paradise, there are a series of illnesses that kill off large numbers of people. The first David is raised by his grandfather because his parents died in the 1870s of some widespread disease. In the second part, the gay men are coping with AIDS, although I don't think they call it that. And in the third part, there are a series of pandemics (like the one from 2020, although that is not mentioned) throughout the rest of the twenty-first century. People lose their freedom because they are quarantined and the regime cracks down harshly on any dissent. Life becomes gradually more and more miserable.
Being sick last week, (better now, but still tired and with some of the post-COVID symptoms I had in the fall and winter) I think about the warnings, not just from fiction, but from scientists about where the human race is heading, and how we will deal with it. It's scary.
Meanwhile, we are hoping to reschedule New York for early August, and I've picked up another dystopian novel from the Best Fiction list, where tourists in New York in 2079 see The Statue of Liberty, now underwater, from a boat.
To Paradise is much more complicated than I described and the writing is beautiful. I don't want to scare anyone away from it.
