What We Lose
Zinzi Clemmons
[Viking]
Zinzi Clemmons’ much-celebrated, semi-autobiographical first novel is an investigation of identity, race, motherhood, family and, most centrally, grief. The protagonist, Thandi, like Clemmons herself, is the daughter of an African-American father and a mixed-race South African mother, and also like Clemmons, is dealing with the aftermath of her mother’s death from breast cancer.
The form of the novel is experimental, the narrative non-linear and woven out of fragments of thought, extracts from academic and medical studies, graphs, mathematical concepts, rap lyrics, statistics and fragments of poetry, as well as anecdotes about well-known figures. At times this is a very successful device, giving the reader space to piece together the implicit messages. For example, an information leaflet discussing the psychological reasons for fear of flying precedes a vivid first-person anecdote in which Thandi’s plane is struck by lightning in South Africa. The contrast in styles here is powerful and effective, subtly allowing us to draw our own conclusions about her relationship with her mother’s home country. However, far too often these disjointed extracts jar, leaving the reader feeling impatient, dissatisfied, or distracted.
Clemmons opens up many boxes, starting lines of investigation that are then swiftly abandoned, and it can often feel gratuitous. She includes an excerpt about Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s implication in Stompie Moeketsi’s kidnap and murder, but ultimately this bears little relevance, tangentially roped in solely to illustrate the little-acknowledged potential for ruthless violence in maternal figures. The inclusion of the extract here feels somewhat contrived and half-baked.
Similarly, digressions dealing with topics such as women who fall in love with violent criminals in prison, or city planning and high-rises in South Africa, feel confusing and irrelevant. As a result of this, one is left with the impression that the book fails to reach its full potential. The lack of focus, the sense of dissociation, does manage at times to convey the disorienting effect of grief, but the emotional impact is ultimately also diluted.
Still, while the narrative may meander, it always circles back to the same central themes: issues surrounding identity and the feeling of not-belonging or “rootlessness” that is the experience of many mixed-race people. This is inextricably tied in with the narrator’s (at times difficult) relationship with her highly opinionated mother, who had taught her the “right” way to do things, from how to straighten her afro hair to how to make a man love her by cooking chicken. “’That’s what a pretty girl looks like,’ she told me when I came home from the hairdresser, my hair shining, my scalp in ravages.”
The grieving process she experiences is inherently linked to her struggle of learning how to be in the world. “This was the paradox,” Thandi affirms, asking “How would I ever heal from losing the person who healed me?” For all its flaws and its failures to draw us completely into its world, What We Lose is overall an engaging read, an interesting rumination on the experience of grief, and an impressive achievement from a young debut author.
Words – Liza Cox
