Yiyun Li's Unfathomable Grief: A Mother's Heartbreak and Literary Resilience

2025-05-18 06:00:20.613

Yiyun Li, a celebrated novelist, recounts the devastating suicides of her two sons, Vincent and James. Following Vincent's death, she wrote 'Where Reasons End,' a fictional yet deeply personal exploration of their relationship. After James's passing, she penned 'Things in Nature Merely Grow,' a memoir that tackles her grief with raw honesty and unsentimental prose. The book details the stark differences between her sons, their unique personalities, and the challenges of capturing James's brilliant, often unreachable mind. Li rejects the notion of grief as a process with an endpoint, emphasizing the ongoing nature of her sorrow. She shares her experiences, the support she received, and the ways she copes with her loss, including writing, gardening, and rereading works by authors such as Joan Didion. The memoir also delves into Li's personal history, including her struggles with depression and suicide attempts, and reflects on the complex relationship between her past traumas and her sons' fates. Despite the profound pain, Li continues to write, creating fiction as a means of processing her experiences, and finds solace in the routine of daily life. The article includes details of her writing process, her decision to write in English, and the challenges she faces in balancing her personal life with her professional career as a professor and author.