In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. In 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist's damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him - and solve the mystery of her husband's disappearance. What unites these characters, and these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human - fear, love, shame, need, loneliness - and the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise.
Hanya Yanagihara