What We Lose: A Novel

Author: Clemmons, Zinzi

Edition: Later Printing

Number Of Pages: 224

Details:

A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 HonoreeNBCC John Leonard First Book Prize FinalistAspen Words Literary Prize FinalistNamed a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, NPR, Elle, Esquire, Buzzfeed, San Francisco Chronicle, Cosmopolitan, The Huffington Post, The A.V. Club, The Root, Harper’s Bazaar, Paste, Bustle, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, LitHub, New York Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Bust“The debut novel of the year.” —Vogue“Like so many stories of the black diaspora, What We Lose is an examination of haunting.” —Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker “Raw and ravishing, this novel pulses with vulnerability and shimmering anger.” —Nicole Dennis-Benn, O, the Oprah Magazine“Stunning. . . . Powerfully moving and beautifully wrought, What We Lose reflects on family, love, loss, race, womanhood, and the places we feel home.” —Buzzfeed“Remember this name: Zinzi Clemmons. Long may she thrill us with exquisite works like What We Lose. . . . The book is a remarkable journey.” —EssenceFrom an author of rare, haunting power, a stunning novel about a young African-American woman coming of age—a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, family, and country Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother’s childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor—someone, or something, to love. In arresting and unsettling prose, we watch Thandi’s life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood. Through exquisite and emotional vignettes, Clemmons creates a stunning portrayal of what it means to choose to live, after loss. An elegiac distillation, at once intellectual and visceral, of a young woman’s understanding of absence and identity that spans continents and decades,  What We Lose heralds the arrival of a virtuosic new voice in fiction. Amazon.com Review In its simplest form, What We Lose tells a story of a young African American woman coming to terms with adulthood and the death of her mother. As Thandi tries to process the truths that cannot possibly be, she swings from gut emotion—“She’s gone. But she’s here, I can feel her. I can see her that day they told us that everything was going to be all right. But she’s not here. But I can feel her arms around me. It feels like the breeze coming off the river…it smells like her breath.”—to searing observations about the word in which we live: “I’ve often thought that being a light-skinned black woman is like a being a well-dressed person who is also homeless...you have nowhere to rest, nowhere to feel safe.” The novel weaves in and out of the past and present, from memories of childhood to Thandi’s own pregnancy and love affairs, to visits to her mother's childhood home in Johannesburg. There are photographs, graphs, drawings, pages filled with a single line that infuse the story with an immediacy. Through Thandi’s pain and process, she (re)constructs her identity from the memory of her mother, family, her experiences, and the reality of the world that surrounds her. A breathtaking novel. --Al Woodworth

Reviews:

A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 HonoreeNBCC John Leonard First Book Prize FinalistAspen Words Literary Prize FinalistCalifornia Book Award First Fiction FinalistHurston/Wright Legacy Award Debut Novel NomineeLonglisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction & the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize

“A startling, poignant debut.”  —The Atlantic

“A richly volatile study of grief, wonderment and love.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Potent . . .  A loosely autobiographical exorcism of grief. Boldly innovative and frankly s...

EAN: 9780735221710

Release Date: 11-07-2017

Languages: English

Item Note: New and unused. Hardcover Used - Like New Ships fast! 2017Later Printing

Item Condition: UsedLikeNew

Binding: Hardcover