An introduction to Hanya Yanagihara’s “To Paradise,” from Vanity Fair: “Written as a triptych, To Paradise begins with ‘Washington Square,’ set in 1893 in an alternate post-Civil War America. The Confederate states are now impoverished colonies, and a steady stream of refugees are fleeing north to the Free States; where gay marriage is fully legalized, and women have had the right to vote since 1799, but Black Americans are not welcome.” “The second installment, titled ‘Lipo-Wao-Nahele,’ takes place a century later in 1993. Now it’s Charles, an affluent lawyer and David, his much-younger boyfriend — a descendant of Hawaii’s last monarch — who occupy the Washington Square home. As New York grapples with the AIDS crisis, David’s father writes from his deathbed in Hawaii to apologize for devoting his life to the seemingly-fringe political cause of monarchical restoration.” “It takes nothing from its predecessors to call ‘Zone Eight,’ the novel’s final pandemic era epoch, its most rive...