Review: Where Reasons End (by Yiyun Li)

 My Rating: 4 stars

At less than 200 pages, this is a very short book, yet the topic it covers is one that requires quite a bit of time and focus to digest as well as ponder.  In this brief but thoughtfully told story, the fictional narrator – a mother and also brilliant writer and teacher – imagines a conversation with her teenage son Nikolai several months after losing him to suicide.  There is no plot, no action, and very little in terms of structure – instead of a linear story, we are presented with snippets of conversation between mother and son that is both sobering and honest, yet also profound and heartfelt.  At no point does the story try to explain why Nikolai chose to take his own life nor does it attempt to provide any details on what happened -- rather, the mother in the story chooses to channel her grief through discussions with her son about memories both happy and sad, moments in the past and present, each other’s thoughts and feelings, and the language that binds them together the most:  words, specifically as it relates to writing, reading, and even grammar usage.  The discussions – mostly back-and-forth bantering that sometimes veers toward argumentative, other times philosophical and sentimental – at times also mix with the narrator’s own thoughts and reminisces to form a relatively precise picture of both characters’ personalities as well as the type of relationship they had.

Despite its short length, this is not an easy read by any means, especially with the knowledge going into this that the story parallels the real-life experience of the author Yiyun Li -- an accomplished writer and teacher similar to the unnamed fictitious narrator in the story -- whose 16-year-old son Vincent committed suicide almost 2 years ago.  Knowing that writing this book was such a personal journey for Li made the experience of reading it so much more poignant and heartbreaking, yet at the same time I can’t help but admire her strength in the face of such an unspeakable tragedy that no parent should ever have to endure.  Li writes with candor here, in prose that is so beautifully rendered that I found myself highlighting something on nearly every page.  There were so many passages that made me stop and reflect, gave me food for thought and even made me re-read and cull a deeper meaning that I hadn’t quite expected – this was actually one of the reasons why it took me longer than usual to read this book.

Quite honestly, it is hard for me to assign a rating to this book and it is equally hard for me to come up with words that would adequately summarize the impact of the story contained within its pages.  So I will keep this review brief and only say that I encourage people to read this book, irregardless of one’s experience with grief.   This may be a small book, but it is deeply insightful.  Definitely recommended!