What We Lose

What We Lose is a novel by Zinzi Clemmons, published in 2017. Based on Clemmons’s own experiences, the novel tells the story of a young woman whose mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, which changes her life in a variety of negative ways. Clemmons employs a variety of experimental techniques, telling the story without a traditional narrative and instead conveying events and emotions through short vignettes, snatches of dialog, and song lyrics.

The novel begins with a brief prologue set after Thandi’s mother has passed. She has a dinner of Chinese takeout with her father, but when she thinks about her mother (the food reminds her of the meals her mother will no longer make her) and the possibility of losing her father as well, she becomes sick.

Thandi then recounts how her parents met. Thandi is American, the daughter of a dark-skinned African-American man and a light-skinned South African woman. Her mother’s family was very wealthy, and South Africa was a pleasant place for them; the violence of Apartheid did not affect them. Thandi’s mother met her father when he volunteered to work in Botswana. They returned to America together; he became a professor, she a nurse. Thandi recalls how terrified she was of visiting her relatives in South Africa, fearing the violence there.



As a light-skinned black woman in Pennsylvania, Thandi struggles, caught between two worlds. Thandi’s mother tells her that she will always have trouble with other black women because of her light skin, and encourages her to straighten her hair and date only black men. Thandi has one very good friend, a girl named Aminah who dates a wealthy white boy named Frank.

In college, Thandi tries to have relationships with other black women but finds that her light skin and good looks always get in the way, as they come to resent the attention she receives. Thandi meets a boy named Dean and falls in love with him, but he eventually begins dating a white girl, crushing Thandi. After a brief breakup with Frank, Aminah tells Thandi that she is pregnant. They go to abort the child without telling him.

Thandi learns that her mother has been diagnosed with cancer and leaves school to care for her. Thandi puts all of her energy into doing what she can for her mother as she grows increasingly sick. When Thandi’s mother dies, she leaves Thandi a sum of money that allows her to return to school.



Thandi is crushed by her mother’s death and grows distant from her father. She graduates and moves to New York to work at an agency dedicated to AIDS research. She finds the work the opposite of inspiring as she witnesses the bureaucracy and lack of compassion at her work. She travels to Portland for a meeting and meets Peter, and is instantly attracted to him. They quickly develop a strong attachment, but Thandi learns he is moving in with his girlfriend and returns home depressed. She discovers her father has begun seeing a new woman, Elma.

A year later, Peter breaks up with his girlfriend and brings Thandi out to Portland. When she comes home, she discovers she is pregnant. She tells Peter and he comes to New York, but he leaves shortly afterward, giving her a check for $600 with the implication that she should have an abortion. For some time she doesn’t hear from him. Aminah and Frank get married and move away. Thandi decides to keep the baby and names him Mahpee, usually referring to him simply as “M.” Peter returns and they get married, and they use the last of the money Thandi’s mother left her to buy a house in Queens, where they live with Mahpee.

Thandi and Peter are initially happy, but slowly grow tense and distant. Peter’s career stalls, which makes him depressed and angry. On a business trip to California, Thandi meets a man who seems like the type her mother would have approved of and has an affair. When she goes home, she tells Peter to move out, and he does. Thandi later gives ownership of the house to Peter and moves with Mahpee to an apartment. Her father marries Elma and helps her financially, as Thandi finds being a single mother to be very challenging; she loves Mahpee but also resents his presence sometimes.



Thandi realizes that as she has progressed in her life, she has begun to lose the strong sense of connection she had with her mother. She mourns this connection, realizing how terrible it is to move on from someone that you loved so dearly. Thandi decides to channel her mother’s spirit into her relationship with Mahpee as a way of keeping part of her alive, and caresses her son in the same way she remembers her mother caressing her when she was small.