Kinder Than Solitude (Hardcover)

A profound mystery is at the heart of this magnificent new novel by Yiyun Li, "one of America's best young novelists" ("Newsweek") and the celebrated author of "The Vagrants, "winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Moving back and forth in time, between America today and China in the 1990s, "Kinder Than Solitude" is the story of three people whose lives are changed by a murder one of them may have committed. As one of the three observes, "Even the most innocent person, when cornered, is capable of a heartless crime."
When Moran, Ruyu, and Boyang were young, they were involved in a mysterious "accident" in which a friend of theirs was poisoned. Grown up, the three friends are separated by distance and personal estrangement. Moran and Ruyu live in the United States, Boyang in China; all three are haunted by what really happened in their youth, and by doubt about themselves. In California, Ruyu helps a local woman care for her family and home, and avoids entanglements, as she has done all her life. In Wisconsin, Moran visits her ex-husband, whose kindness once overcame her flight into solitude. In Beijing, Boyang struggles to deal with an inability to love, and with the outcome of what happened among the three friends twenty years ago.
Brilliantly written, a breathtaking page-turner, "Kinder Than Solitude "resonates with provocative observations about human nature and life. In mesmerizing prose, and with profound insight, Yiyun Li unfolds this remarkable story, even as she explores the impact of personality and the past on the shape of a person's present and future.
Praise for "Kinder Than Solitude"
"There's something about the poise, the tidiness, the seemingly effortless calm of Yiyun Li's writing that makes it easy to see her as an author who, like Jhumpa Lahiri, employs a Chekovian neutrality. . . . But look again. . . . There's a withering, vibrating sarcasm at work in the juxtaposition of national and personal tragedies."--"The New York Times Book Review"
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"Li turns an intricately plotted mystery into something more profound, one that queries the meaning of crime and punishment in the moral murk of contemporary China."--"The New Yorker"
"The surface of Yiyun Li's prose is deceptively still, but just beneath the surface are the sadness, pain, and tragedy of three lives, each one driven into a kind of damaged solitude by the memory of the past. Li's characters are portrayed with a harsh beauty, and one's emotions become deeply engaged with their fates, and with the mystery of a poisoned woman, a crime which has shaped--perhaps deformed--them all. This is an exceptional novel, and Yiyun Li has grown into one of our major novelists."--Salman Rushdie
"Li is something of a connoisseur of loneliness and despondency--in this she is reminiscent of the . . . bard of solitude, William Trevor--and her book is rich in such elegant, fine-grained expressions of despair."--"The Wall Street Journal"
"Yiyun Li has such an authentic voice, and she is not afraid of cutting to the bone to get to the truth of relationships and emotions. I believe "Kinder Than Solitude" is her best novel yet."--Lisa See"
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" Li] writes with acuity and nuance about ordinary lives set against broader cultural and social divides. . . . What makes "Kinder Than Solitude"] so vivid is its humanity, the idea that nationality and history are less important than the vagaries of the heart."--"Los Angeles Times"