{"id":228,"date":"2026-05-30T14:35:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T14:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2026-05-30T14:35:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T14:35:05","slug":"yiyun-li-on-life-in-the-abyss-writing-and-the-importance-of-moby-dick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=228","title":{"rendered":"Yiyun Li on life \u2018in the abyss,\u2019 writing and the importance of \u2018Moby Dick\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Novelist Yiyun Li read from her new memoir at a packed Cambridge Public Library last week, speaking about the suicides of her two sons and how she turned to art and writing in her grief.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=226\">CPS names new school leaders and administrators<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In \u201cThings in Nature Merely Grow,\u201d which won the Pulitzer Prize for memoir earlier this month, Li writes about her son James, who died in 2024. This was six years after his brother, Vincent, died of suicide, which became the subject of Li\u2019s book \u201cWhere Reasons End.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Li finished her reading with the final words of \u201cThings in Nature Merely Grow,\u201d describing the idea that has carried her through grief:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes a mother and a child are like two hands placed next to each other: only just touching, or else with fingers intertwined. Then the world turns, and one hand is left, holding on to everything and nothing that is called now and now and now and now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Grace Talusan, author of the 2019 memoir \u201cThe Body Papers,\u201d led a conversation with Li, who sported black horn-rimmed glasses and striped pants with shiny red Adidas shoes. Li said she experienced a taboo surrounding mourning after each of her sons\u2019 deaths. Would-be sympathizers often asked her what stage of grief she was in. \u201cPeople hope you\u2019ll get over it as soon as possible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>To understand her grief, she turned to King Lear, Camus, and Anna Karenina. \u201cArt allows us to feel extreme emotion,\u201d said Li.<\/p>\n<p>She also shared her back story, immigrating from Beijing to pursue doctoral studies in immunology at the University of Iowa. After she took a course in creative writing, she dropped her Ph.D. program and studied for a master\u2019s degree in fine arts, which she finished in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat could be more different than writing, writing in English?\u201d she asked. \u201cWhich was not a rational decision. It may be the only inexplicable decision I\u2019ve made in my life,\u201d she said with a light chuckle, her hair\u2019s soft silver swoop glinting under the library lights.<\/p>\n<p>Li said that she doesn\u2019t write from a cultural identity of being Chinese and an immigrant. \u201cThat is who I am,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I write, I don\u2019t necessarily think of myself. I mostly pay attention to the characters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One story she shared drew laughs from across the room. Her novel \u201cThe Book of Goose\u201d follows two teenagers in post-WWII France. While she was writing it, she asked her agent<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=224\">Two new movies grapple with our disorienting, disoriented world<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you think I am participating in something called \u2026 cultural appropriation?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her agent replied, \u201cI think we\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Li\u2019s memoir is emblematic in its clarity and precision of language, despite the wrenching nature of its subjects, including maternal grief. \u201cThat a mother can do all things humanly possible for her children and yet cannot keep them alive \u2014 this is a fact that eschews any adjective,\u201d Li read. \u201cIn this abyss that I call my life, facts, with their logic, meaning, and weight, are what I hold on to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked about this precision by Talusan, Li described the \u201cpressure\u201d she places on words to accurately and precisely describe living as intentional. Through her grief, she adhered to her daily writing and reading routine as a form of \u201cmarking time,\u201d quoting Elizabeth Jane Howard\u2019s historical novels, as well as gardening and playing piano.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can live in the abyss while still living,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Li described a practice that helped her write, even when her own work was too heavy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I can\u2019t read my work, I copy \u2018Moby Dick\u2019 \u2026 If I can hand copy a paragraph, that\u2019s better than not writing a paragraph,\u201d Li added. She has copied her way through to Chapter 57 of \u201cMoby Dick.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Library staff organized Li\u2019s event in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the audience, who later lined up out the door of the library\u2019s lecture hall to get Li to sign their books, shared their own stories during the talk: losing a child, struggling with suicidal thoughts, and grieving suicide within their families. Some, like Li, had translated their experiences onto the page.<\/p>\n<p>Li teaches undergraduate writing at Princeton University, and she advises her students on \u201chow to pay attention and what to pay attention to\u201d amidst failing attention spans. \u201cWe write with the texture of life,\u201d Li said.<\/p>\n<p><em>If you are having thoughts of suicide or know someone who is, call or text 988 to reach the <\/em><em>988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline<\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=222\">State invests $25 million in future MIT \u201cquantum toolbox\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Novelist Yiyun Li read from her new memoir at a packed Cambridge Public Library last week, speaking about the suicides of her two sons and how she turned to art and writing in her grief. Read more CPS names new school leaders and administrators In \u201cThings in Nature Merely Grow,\u201d which won the Pulitzer Prize [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[47,48,50],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-ideas","tag-books","tag-cambridge-public-library","tag-reading"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Yiyun Li on life \u2018in the abyss,\u2019 writing and the importance of \u2018Moby Dick\u2019 - Cambridge Moving Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=228\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Yiyun Li on life \u2018in the abyss,\u2019 writing and the importance of \u2018Moby Dick\u2019 - Cambridge Moving Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Novelist Yiyun Li read from her new memoir at a packed Cambridge Public Library last week, speaking about the suicides of her two sons and how she turned to art and writing in her grief. 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