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Things in Nature Merely Grow

AUTHOR Li, Yiyun
PUBLISHER Farrar, Straus and Giroux (05/20/2025)
PRODUCT TYPE Hardcover (Hardcover)

Description

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Yiyun Li's remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance 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 time line." 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: doing "things that work," 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 or mourning. As Li writes, "The verb that does not die is 'to be.' Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later; only now and now and now and now." Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li's indomitable spirit.

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Product Format
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780374617318
ISBN-10: 0374617317
Binding: Hardback or Cased Book (Sewn)
Content Language: English
More Product Details
Page Count: 192
Carton Quantity: 28
Product Dimensions: 5.73 x 0.80 x 8.32 inches
Weight: 0.68 pound(s)
Feature Codes: Dust Cover, Price on Product
Country of Origin: US
Subject Information
BISAC Categories
Literary Collections | Essays
Literary Collections | Memoirs
Literary Collections | Death, Grief, Bereavement
Dewey Decimal: B
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024057117
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
publisher marketing

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Yiyun Li's remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance 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 time line." 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: doing "things that work," 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 or mourning. As Li writes, "The verb that does not die is 'to be.' Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later; only now and now and now and now." Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li's indomitable spirit.

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Hardcover