Things in Nature Merely Grow

By: Yiyun Li

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Yiyun Li’s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James.

"The voice actor Suzanne Toren delivers a careful and sensitive reading, embodying the author’s calmly analytical mind, which is testament to the human ability to endure." — The Guardian

“There is no good way to say this,” Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this audiobook.

“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: “doing the things that work,” including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death.

This is an audiobook for James, but it is not an audiobook 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Critic reviews

“In this intimate memoir, novelist Li remembers her teenage sons, James and Vincent, after their deaths by suicide . . . Li recounts both boys’ lives with palpable love and paints complex, distinct portraits of each . . . Readers who’ve dealt with their own tragedies will find comfort and understanding here.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Li manages the near impossible in a complex memoir that is as devastating as it is searingly insightful into the contours of grief and acceptance, recommended for anyone who is navigating the nonlinear timeline of loss.”
—Greta Rainbow, Bustle (Best New Books of Spring)

Children die, and parents go on living.

A description of the best we can do when things fall apart. I found myself struck by the repetition of the simple phrases - regarding hands, regarding how things in nature merely grow, regarding now and now and now - and held them close long after I finished reading.

The truth of her experience

I have lost two children not to suicide but loss leaves a chasm and her words in some places were like a bridge. While her words were extremely painful, I applaud her bravery and vulnerability in telling her reality. I thank her also.

Her deep and beautiful descriptions of sorrow

The concise and descriptive sentences that filled me with wonder and sadness. Such a remarkable author!!

Lovely and loving book about a Mother’s love for her children

This is a lovely book about a mother’s love for her children. It is about how she lives on after the suicides of her boys. It is about death, but it is really about life and living.

Refusal to give or seek advice

I love that austerity. The restraint, of never giving or receiving advice. In a context where such a temptation must be immense. Goes against the whole American genre of self-help books. The reading is immaculate. Cool and intense.