A Little Life

Several years have passed since the end of Part 1; Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm are now in their early thirties. Although Jude and Willem could now afford to live elsewhere, they still live in their Lispenard Street apartment. Willem is closer to achieving his acting dream, with a starring role in a high-profile play. Jude works at the US Attorney’s Office and tutors a young boy named Felix on the side for extra money. Though he admits it to no one, he saves the extra money for a surgery he hopes to get to erase the substantial scarring on his back.

Jude recalls his early months as a freshman at college, where he felt like an alien because he did not understand all the cultural references his peers made. At this point, the narrator does not reveal why Jude’s childhood was so different than his peers’ childhoods; the reader knows that Jude grew up in a monastery, but not why or where. Though his close friends respected his obvious disinclination to discuss his past, JB pushed him the most, at one point giving him the nickname “The Postman,” claiming that Jude’s mysterious past rendered him “post-sexual, post-racial, post-identity, post-past” (940).