THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW

Unforgettable SUNDAY TIMES Courageous OBSERVER One of the most important books to be published in years SARA COLLINS There are few writers with Li s power DOUGLAS STUARTThe best book I have read this year DAVID NICHOLLS I will return to it for the rest of my life CHARLOTTE WOODA remarkable defiant work of radical acceptance from acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist Yiyun Li as she considers the loss of her son James There is no good way to say this Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book There is no good way to state these facts which must be acknowledged My husband and I had two children and lost them both Vincent in 2017 at sixteen James in 2024 at nineteen Both chose suicide and both died not far from home There is no good way to say this because words fall short It takes only an instant for death to become fact a single point in a timeline Living now on this single point Li turns to thinking and reasoning and searching for words that might hold a place for James Li does what she can including not just writing but gardening reading Camus and Wittgenstein learning the piano and living thinkingly alongside death This is a book for James but it is not a book about grieving As Li writes The verb that does not die i