Cleo Dang and her husband, Ethan, have been preparing for the birth of their first daughter for a while. They have good, steady jobs (Cleo is an actuary; Ethan is an anesthesiologist), they have read all the advice manuals, they have purchased a home in one of Toronto’s best neighborhoods for raising a family, and they have furnished the nursery with everything they need once they bring their little bundle of joy home. Best of all? That wonderful new house is directly across the street from Cleo’s best friend, Paloma, who also is expecting her first baby.

But all those plans go suddenly and tragically awry when Daisy suffers a catastrophic brain injury, and it becomes clear shortly after her birth that she is not going to survive. Instead of living out their dreams of late-night lullaby sessions and long walks with the stroller, Cleo and Ethan find themselves driving home from the hospital, the carefully installed child safety seat still empty.

"As any reader who has experienced profound grief will understand, Cleo’s story is far from straightforward.... CLEO DANG WOULD RATHER BE DEAD is not always an emotionally easy read, but it is a resonant and breathtakingly honest one."

Though it’s a cliché that no one really knows the right thing to say when someone suffers a loss, Cleo soon discovers that this is especially true when it involves a child. Her Vietnamese immigrant mother trades off between offering advice from her home country and sending inspirational quotes. When, desperate for something to do, Cleo tries to return to work early instead of using up her maternity leave, her coworkers avert their eyes and she winds up leaving. Worst of all, Paloma went into labor the same day as Cleo and now has a healthy baby. But neither Cleo nor Paloma knows how to manage the mix of jealousy and loss that Cleo feels every time she remembers the life of new motherhood she once imagined and was certain she was destined to have.

The one place where Cleo feels like people take her pain and grief at face value is at the funeral home where they hold Daisy’s funeral. Kenneth, the funeral director, is a little weird but also kind. So when he offers her a job out of the blue, she accepts. Counterintuitively, Cleo finds it comforting to be around other people who understand loss. They include not only the recently bereaved whom she and her colleagues serve, but also her colleagues themselves. From them, Cleo learns not to judge others’ grieving processes and to trust that her dark feelings are not unique to her --- that there is a community of loss to which she now belongs.

As any reader who has experienced profound grief will understand, Cleo’s story is far from straightforward. At times, her behavior is erratic and unstable. And although she never seriously considers self-harm, at one point she says, “Frankly, I’m not all that interested in being alive right now. I always joke that if a crane were to fall from the sky, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to get out of the way.” But despite many dark moments, Mai Nguyen’s novel is one that I will think about for a long time whenever I hear the descriptor “tragicomic.” Cleo’s first-person narration is candid in both its heartbreak and its surprisingly blunt humor.

Although the road isn’t a straight one, Cleo comes to appreciate the patience and love of those around her. Once she starts to turn her grief outward --- to share her true feelings with Ethan, Paloma and her colleagues at the funeral home --- she discovers moments of grace, fellow feeling, and even something resembling hope.

CLEO DANG WOULD RATHER BE DEAD is not always an emotionally easy read, but it is a resonant and breathtakingly honest one.