See: Loss. See Also: Love.

Named a Best Book of Spring 2024 by Oprah Daily and a Most Anticipated Book by The Millions and PureWow

A tender, slyly comical, and shamelessly honest debut novel following a Japanese widow raising her son between worlds with the help of her Jewish mother-in-law as she wrestles with grief, loss, and—strangest of all—joy.

Shortly after her husband Levi's untimely death, Kyoko decides to raise their young son, Alex, in San Francisco, rather than return to Japan. Her nosy yet loving Jewish mother-in-law, Bubbe, encourages her to find new love and abandon frugality but her own mother wants Kyoko to celebrate her now husbandless life. Always beside her is Alex, who lives confidently, no matter the circumstance.

Four sections of vignettes reflect Kyoko's fluctuating emotional states—sometimes ugly, other times funny, but always uniquely hers. While freshly mourning Levi, Kyoko and Alex confront another death—that of Alex's pet betta fish. Kyoko and Bubbe take a road trip to a psychic and discover that Kyoko carries bad karma. On visits back to Japan, Kyoko and her mother clash over how best to connect Alex with his Japanese heritage, and as Alex enters his teenage years and brings his first girlfriend home, Kyoko lets her imagination run wild as she worries about teen pregnancy.

In this openhearted and surprising novel about the choices and relationships that sustain us, there are times where Kyoko is lonely but never alone and others in which she is alone but never lonely. Through these moments, she learns how much more there is to herself in the wake of total and unexpected upheaval. See: Loss. See Also: Love. is a testament to how grief isn't a linear process but is a spiraling awareness of the vast range of human emotion we experience every day.

About the Author

Yukiko Tominaga was born and raised in Japan. She was a finalist for the 2020 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, selected by Roxane Gay. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Bellingham Review, among other publications. She also works at Counterpoint Press where she helps to introduce never-before-translated books from Japan to English language readers. See: Loss. See Also: Love. is her first book.

Reviews

"This debut novel breaks all the rules when it comes to grief writing, capturing loss in all its belligerent rage and raw humor... This is first and foremost a love story, but the love is not so much between the living wife and her dead husband as it is between all the people who flood in to fill the vacuum of her loss: a neighborhood turned stand-in father, a new lover, and—in fits and starts—a new self." —Oprah Daily

"Yukiko Tominaga's See: Loss. See Also: Love. is a miracle and a dream—tightly crafted, full of heart, warmth, honesty, and compassion. Tominaga's prose encompasses the entire world, expansive and expertly executed. See: Loss. See Also: Love. is deeply, deeply vibrant and surprising; giving us loss, yes, but also so much love, to the fullest extent, and in so many forms. Tominaga is a wonder and I loved this book." —Bryan Washington, author of Family Meal and Memorial

"Tominaga weaves an enchanting spell and captivates readers with her refractive and translucent prose. Her debut novel constantly surprises and subverts expectations. Through exquisitely crafted chapters, the intricate dynamics of a family come into sharp focus, revealing both their profound love and the depths of their grief. These pages are imbued with a wealth of wisdom, exploring the languages of love and family, while also delving into the nuances of language itself. Tominaga has secured a lifelong fan in me." —Weike Wang, author of Joan Is Okay and Chemistry

"Modulating warm, lucid, and subtle prose, Tominaga deftly holds the tension between exploring the complicated realities of grief and the possibilities that come from still being alive after loss. ...Tominaga ultimately crafts a novel about the intimacy of a family, skillfully taking readers from Boston to San Francisco to Japan and back again treating readers to an exquisite and poignant novel." —Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of The Tree Doctor and American Harvest

Dimensions: 13.97 x 2.29 x 21.27 cm