Where Reasons End
By Yiyun Li
Hamish Hamilton
Dedicated to the author’s own son who died by suicide at 16, Yiyun Li’s Where Reasons End is a poignant conversation between a mother and her dead son, as she attempts to grapple with his lost future.
Through writing, the narrator allows herself to process seemingly insignificant memories, past remarks, and moments shared. She sifts through clichés, trying them on one-by-one, and circles round her thoughts without resolution, because words are inept to describe the profundity of her loss. The often-irreverent back-and-forth between mother and son paints a picture of who he was in life – creative, passionate, and a stubborn perfectionist. It also allows the narrator to externalise her accusations of self-pity, as the voice of her own personal shame sounds.
More an exercise than a novel, the narrator uses the conversation not to channel her grief, but rather to escape the reality of her son’s non-presence. The words ‘never again’ hauntingly resound throughout the piece, as every memory ends with a reminder of his premature death.
At times, the son’s morbid insights are uncomfortable to sit with, a technique employed to remind the reader how much we fear death and cling to life. Where Reasons End is a delicate and earnest contemplation of a mother’s loss, and the inevitable onslaught of days she must live while he does not.
Words: Courtney Byrne
