What We Lose: A Novel

"What feels at first like fragments and vignettes of narrator Thandi’s life (watching her mother die, graphs depicting her levels of depression, trips to visit family in South Africa, orgasms with partners) become a remarkable book about how you become a woman when the defining woman in your life is taken away. Clemmons knows how grief experienced at a young age can form, dent and deprive. I love this book because Clemmons’ simple writing encapsulates a messy and many-layered woman"