Namwali Serpell describes how she explored loss and grief in ‘The Furrows’

Wayne, a charming and precocious seven-year-old, drowns despite the frantic rescue effort of his 12-year-old sister Cassandra in the opening lines of Namwali Serpell’s sophomore novel, “The Furrows.” Worse still, afterward, Wayne’s broken body vanishes from the shore, moments after a disconsolate Cassandra spots a man leaning over him. 

The indefinable and undefined loss rips apart Cassandra’s family; her parents’ marriage fractures and her father, who is Black moves away and tries to move on...