The People in the Trees - by Hanya Yanagihara (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"Provokes discussions about science, morality and our obsession with youth." --Chicago Tribune

It is 1950 when Norton Perina, a young doctor, embarks on an expedition to a remote Micronesian island in search of a rumored lost tribe. There he encounters a strange group of forest dwellers who appear to have attained a form of immortality that preserves the body but not the mind. Perina uncovers their secret and returns with it to America, where he soon finds great success. But his discovery has come at a terrible cost, not only for the islanders, but for Perina himself.

Look for Hanya Yanagihara's latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Review Quotes

"Exhaustingly inventive and almost defiant in its refusal to offer redemption or solace. . . . As for Yanagihara, she is a writer to marvel at." --The New York Times Book Review

"A mystery story, an ecological parable, a monstrous confession, and a fascinating consideration of moral relativism. . . . A triumph of the imagination." --Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See

"Haunting. . . . A standout novel . . . thrilling." --The Wall Street Journal

"Fascinating and multilayered. . . . [Yanagihara's] storytelling is masterful. . . . Hugely ambitious and entertaining." --The Boston Globe

"A deeply satisfying adventure story. . . . Provokes discussions about science, morality and our obsession with youth." --Chicago Tribune

"Hauntingly strange and utterly convincing. . . . A novel you will finish and immediately want to read again; a complex, elegant and wonderfully troubling debut." --Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet

"Feels like a National Geographic story by way of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. . . . The world Yanagihara conjures up, full of 'dark pockets of mystery, ' is magical." --The Times (London)

"An engrossing, beautifully detailed, at times amazing (and shocking) novel." --Paul Theroux, author of The Lower River and The Great Railway Bazaar


"By turns brilliant, provocative and profoundly sobering." --Independent on Sunday (London)

"Captivating--and thoroughly unsettling." --Vogue

"Impossible to resist. . . . Packed with a symphony of complex themes made accessible by the sheer poetry of [Yanagihara's] prose. . . . [A] brilliantly told story." --The Daily Mail (London)

"A Nabokovian phantasmagoria. . . . Hanya Yanagihara is a writer to watch." --Madison Smartt Bell, author of The Color of Night and All Souls' Rising

"Engrossing." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Richly imagined. . . . Striking and highly satisfying." --The Guardian (London)

"Astonishing. . . . Riveting." --Interview magazine

"Pulses with big ideas. . . . Masterful. . . . [An] audacious, beautifully wrought tragedy." --The Toronto Star