Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yin Li

Without question, this was the best book I read this year. In it Yiyun Li writes about the unimaginable and “illogical” loss of both of her sons to suicide. Illogical, she explores, because if she were to present this piece as a work of fiction, editors or readers might not be able to conceive such a tragedy happening in real life.

Li tells us that this is not a book about loss or grieving but it is an examination of the emotions of what happens after loss and radically accepting that abyss as one’s reality. It embraces that abyss in a manner that most people today would find completely foreign, but her honesty here is remarkably refreshing. — MJD

Excerpt:

So, dear readers: if a mother using the word “died” or “death” offends your sensibilities, (a journalist from China featured my word choice in a profile of me, which led to disapproval among Chinese readers); if you believe that “love” is a magic word that will make everything all right (as did one of my readers, who confronted me on a book tour, asking me how I could have attempted slide if I had ever loved my children); if you think I’ve erred by not putting my life in the loving hands of thy god (as an ex-friend of mine believes, telling me after Vincent’s death that he was sent by God and taken away by God so there was no reason for me to feel too sad); if you think suicide is too depressing a subject; if the fact that all things insoluble in life remain insoluble is too bleak for you; and if you prefer that radical acceptance remain a foreign concept to you, this is a good time for you to stop reading.

This book is about life’s extremities, about facts and logic, written from a particularly abysmal place where no parent would want to be. This book will neither ask the questions you may want me to ask nor provide the closure you may expect the book to offer. - p.25

Every book you buy here does more than tell a story—it helps change one.

I earn a small commission through Bookshop.org, and 100% of those proceeds support my work in Ethiopia with Friends of Homacho, funding clean water, schools, and hope where it’s needed most.