'The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl' by Bart Yates
- Reed
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Author: Bart Yates
Rating: A
Vibe: : A beautiful, structurally inventive novel that follows one gay man's life through the same day across decades—funny, devastating, and immensely enjoyable
I didn't expect to fall in love with Isaac Dahl, but here we are.
The Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl is one of those rare books where you immediately trust the narrator—not because he's perfect, but because he's honest, kind, and fully himself from page one. Bart Yates structures the novel around a single day—Isaac's birthday—revisited across different decades of his life. It's a brilliant narrative choice that could've felt gimmicky in lesser hands, but instead becomes a deeply moving meditation on time, memory, and the people who shape us.
Isaac is a gay man living through decades of American history, and we meet him at different ages: as a young man navigating secrecy and discrimination, as someone building a life with the people he loves, and eventually as an older man reckoning with loss. What makes this book work—what makes it sing—is Isaac himself. His voice is warm, wry, and achingly real. He's not a martyr or a saint. He's just someone trying to live a good life, treat people well, and hold onto the things that matter. And somehow, that's everything.
The relationships in this book are extraordinary. Isaac's bond with his sister is tender and complicated in all the right ways—full of shared history, unspoken understanding, and the kind of loyalty that doesn't need to announce itself. His best friend is equally vivid, and their friendship feels lived-in and true. These aren't idealized relationships; they're messy, evolving, and deeply grounded in the realities of how people actually love each other over time.
The structure was unique. Revisiting the same day across decades creates these echoes that sneak up on you. You see Isaac celebrate his birthday with a full table of people he loves—and then, years later, you see that table grow emptier. You watch him lose people. And because we've already met them, already seen them laugh and argue and take up space in his life, those losses land with real weight. It's devastating in the quietest, most earned way.
The book also does something important with the gay male experience, especially for men of Isaac's generation. There's discrimination, yes, and secrecy—the kind of careful navigation that was necessary to survive. But Yates doesn't make that the whole story. Isaac's queerness is central to who he is, but the novel is more interested in his full life: his friendships, his family, his work, his joys and sorrows. It's a story about a gay man, not a story about being gay—and that distinction matters.
I'm giving this an A. It's funny without being flippant, devastating without being manipulative, and structurally inventive without losing sight of its emotional core. Isaac Dahl is the kind of character who stays with you long after you've closed the book—someone you'd want at your table, someone you'd trust with your stories. This is a beautiful novel about what it means to love people, lose them, and keep going anyway.
