Things in Nature Merely Grow: memoir of 'harsh beauty' after loss
Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li's 'devastating' memoir explores the deaths of her two sons

The Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li begins her "quietly devastating" memoir by "laying out the facts", said Suzanne Joinson in The Guardian.
"And those facts, raw and precise, are shattering." Li and her husband had two sons, Vincent and James. Vincent died in 2017, aged 16; James died in 2024, aged 19. Both ended their lives by jumping in front of trains not far from the family home in New Jersey.
Both were academically gifted, but had very different personalities. Vincent, who "loved baking and knitting", was the more flamboyant and emotional of the two – a boy, Li says, who lived "feelingly". James, by contrast, a "brilliant linguist", was "self-contained, somewhat unreachable", more at home with facts than feelings. If Vincent died because he couldn't cope with his emotions, James, Li suggests, "died from thinking". The story she tells in "Things in Nature Merely Grow" is so terrible that it "can only be conveyed through a restrained and astringent English". Yet the effect of this is not to distance the reader, but to create an "almost unbearable intimacy".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Li, who grew up in Beijing, and began her "prize-winning literary career" after moving to the US in 1996, is fiercely resistant to "platitudes about loss and grief", said Daphne Merkin in The New York Times. "Sometimes people ask me where I am in the grieving process," she writes, "and I wonder whether they understand anything at all about losing someone." Instead of grief, she strives for "radical acceptance" – which seems to mean being aware that she is condemned to exist in the "abyss", while also carrying on in the normal world – getting out of bed at the regular time, playing the piano, studying Euclidean geometry. "Life is stubborn," she writes. "So am I."
Li offers some context to her son's deaths by exploring her own past, said Helen Brown in The Telegraph. We learn that she was "relentlessly belittled and beaten by her mother as a child", and that she suffered bouts of severe depression, and twice attempted suicide when her sons were young. Did this, she asks bluntly, make "death feel like a viable solution to life's problems" for them? In the face of such unanswerable questions, Li "resists anger or regret", opting instead for a "cool-headed clarity".
There's something remarkable about her "determination to live with dignity and defiance through this extremity", said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Times. A work of "harsh beauty", her memoir is "unlike any other book I've read".
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Millions turn out for anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ rallies
Speed Read An estimated 7 million people participated, 2 million more than at the first ‘No Kings’ protest in June
-
Conservative megadonors build a new bank thanks to Trump administration approval
IN THE SPOTLIGHT With a Lord Of The Rings-inspired name, and the backing of some of the biggest GOP financiers around, Erebor Bank is set to make major waves in the crypto world
-
Political cartoons for October 20
Cartoons Monday’s political cartoons include a $40 billion bailout for Argentina, Prince Andrew's titles, chaos at the CDC, and more
-
A little-visited Indian Ocean archipelago
The Week Recommends The paradise of the Union of the Comoros features beautiful beaches, colourful coral reefs and lush forests
-
Diane Keaton: the Oscar-winning star of Annie Hall
In the Spotlight Something’s Gotta Give actor dies from pneumonia at the age of 79
-
Heirs and Graces: an ‘enthralling’ deep dive into the decline of nobility
The Week Recommends Eleanor Doughty explores the ‘bizarre fascination’ with the British aristocracy
-
6 sporty homes with tennis courts
Feature Featuring a clay tennis court in New York and a viewing deck in California
-
Critics’ choice: Seafood in the spotlight
Feature An experimental chef, a newspaper-worthy newcomer, and a dining titan’s fresh spin-off
-
Taylor Swift’s Showgirl: Much glitter, little gold
Feature Swift’s new album has broken records, but critics say she may have gotten herself creatively stuck
-
Theater review: Masquerade
218 W. 57th St., New York City 218 W. 57th St., New York City
-
Film reviews: Roofman and Kiss of the Spider Woman
Feature An escaped felon’s heart threatens to give him away and a prisoner escapes into daydreams of J.Lo.