Potent . . . A loosely autobiographical exorcism of grief. Boldly innovative and frankly sexual, the collage-like novel mixes hand-drawn charts, archival photographs, rap lyrics, sharp disquisitions on the Mandelas and Oscar Pistorius, and singular meditations on racism's brutal intimacies. . . . A novel as visceral as it is cerebral, never letting us forget, over the course of its improbably expansive 200 pages, the feeling of untameable grief in the body. . . . One can't help but think of Clemmons as in the running to be the next-generation Claudia Rankine. -Megan O'Grady, Vogue

Like so many stories of the black diaspora, What We Lose is an examination of haunting. . . . Thandi, Clemmons's narrator, carefully reeling after the death of her mother, occupies a voice so clear that she, and her grief, feel immediately tangible. -Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker

In stark prose, Clemmons's narrator, Thandi, grieves the agonizing loss of her difficult and loving immigrant mother to cancer. Searing vignettes describe her life before and after her mother's death. . . . The book's distinctive form and voice give it an unusual capacity to show how individuals connect deep feeling to broad political understanding-an experience too rarely rendered in fiction. -The New York Times Book Review

Contrasting what it means to be black in America with being black in Johannesburg, where her mother's relatives still live, Clemmons presents a brutally honest yet nuanced view of contemporary identity. . . . Raw and ravishing, this novel pulses with vulnerability and shimmering anger. -Nicole Dennis-Benn, O, the Oprah Magazine

Who do we become when we lose a parent? That transformation and the loss of identity . . . is at the heart of Zinzi Clemmons' novel What We Lose. -NPR

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

This affecting novel combines autobiographical vignettes with photos and pertinent charts-one tracks longevity by race-as the narrator reckons with her loss. -People

A startling, poignant debut. . . . The book's force comes as much from its form as from its content. . . . A striking novel about filial grief. -The Atlantic

Illness, race, and heartbreak collide in this beautiful debut about a college student who's trying to come to terms with the death of her vivacious South African-born mother. -Entertainment Weekly

An episodic novel about a young woman struggling with issues of grief, romance and racial identity after her mother's death. -John Williams, The New York Times

What We Lose is about a young woman enduring the loss of her mother. Structured innovatively in precise vignettes, it stares down questions of emotional inheritance, belonging, grief and race. . . . The sense of experimentation in What We Lose includes excerpts from other writers and a number of illustrations. . . . The nontraditional structure of the book, which is not chronological but thematic, mimics loss itself-the fragmentation and persistence of memory in the face of what comes next, like having a child or falling in love. -Agatha French, The Los Angeles Times

A debut of haunting fragments. . . . The novel sets out to do important work: to explore the contours of race, class and gender and the legacy of apartheid; and it succeeds best when exploring these ideas through the delicately drawn and profoundly moving portrait it offers of a relationship between mother and daughter. -The Guardian

Remember this name: Zinzi Clemmons. Long may she thrill us with exquisite works like What We Lose, her debut. Young Thandi, our heroine, grows up in Pennsylvania feeling like a fish on a bicycle. Why? As a biracial woman whose mother hails from Johannesburg, South Africa, she struggles to define home. In Clemmons's hands the book is a remarkable journey. -Patrick Henry Bass, Essence