Description

In the wake of a life-altering loss, a community gathers around grief, memory, and the stories people tell to survive what can’t be undone. As relationships strain and loyalties are tested, the novel follows characters navigating love, inheritance, and the quiet negotiations of power that shape who gets to be heard. With lyrical intensity and sharp emotional realism, it explores how trauma travels through families and neighborhoods—and how resilience can be both a refuge and a burden. Blending intimate character work with broader social insight, this is a story about what we carry, what we surrender, and what it costs to keep going.

Available Editions

paperback edition cover

paperback

Penguin Books

Published Jun 5, 2018

224 pages

ISBN: 9780735221734

available

Reviews

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Community Reviews(1)

@gxuosiJul 3, 2026

“Yes, there is that dark, terrifying loneliness that scares me, but I am acquainted with fear. If I stay inside it long enough, root my heels in deeper, it doesn’t feel scary anymore. It feels like home.”<br/>to live is to be born, create, die 100 times, and willingly do it again; to find meaning in the random and joy in the endless nothing.

Details

First Published

2017

Language

eng

Content Warnings

Content and trigger warnings for What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons.

Death/Grief
War/Trauma