But Won't I Miss Me

Born in the US and raised between Indonesia and Singapore, Tiffany Tsao is a former academic turned award-winning literary translator, who translates from the Indonesian. She received the 2023 PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Budi Darma’s People from Bloomington, and her translation of Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s Happy Stories, Mostly was longlisted for the Internation Booker Prize in 2022. She lives in Sydney, Australia, with her family.

In Tsao’s (The Majesties, 2020) provocative novel, "rebirth" is the process in which pregnant Vivi will give birth to her baby and to a second self that will grow quickly, kill her, and eat her. Her sister, her husband, and her society view rebirth as a generative gift to new mothers: five years of superhuman strength and vigor. But Vivi is scared. She wants the baby, but she doesn’t want to be killed and eaten by a new self. . . . This well-structured and deeply compelling novel is about so much more than postpartum struggles literalized into horror. It’s about Chinese immigration to Australia in terms of the emotional reasoning, legal processes, and communal experiences. It’s also about a marriage’s expectations and limits in the face of new parentage and depression. Readers know early on that something went wrong with Vivi's rebirth. When the reason is revealed in part two, and a shift in perspective retells the plot from a different lens, readers are treated to a profound exploration of the limits and consequences of love. — Booklist (starred)Tsao (The Majesties) writes an alternative-reality, sci-fi, body-horror thriller contemplating how society fails mothers, the horror of following the status quo, and, most provocatively, what happens when a person is their own victim. . . . Readers will hang on every detail, falling easily into Tsao’s novel and its complex, flawed but sympathetic characters and unable to shake the unsettling tone set by the title; they won’t be even close to ready for the twist when it drops. A master class in storytelling that will leave readers, if not reborn, forever changed by the experience. — Library Journal (starred)Tiffany Tsao's But Won't I Miss Me features a world where income inequality is staggering and motherhood requires a literal relinquishing of self. . . . But Won't I Miss Me is a combination of mystery, psychological portrait, and sustained philosophical provocation. Tsao, a PEN Prize-winning literary translator of Indonesian fiction in addition to being an author, holds all these registers in balance with singular skill. Tsao's horror operates through implication; the novel's most disturbing moments arise from its world's absolute and cheerful systemic indifference to what women surrender. Comparable to Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch or Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, this novel is breathtaking in its world-building and devastating in its emotional precision. But Won't I Miss Me is the body horror novel motherhood always deserved. — Shelf Awareness (starred)With evocative details and unassuming yet acerbic wit, Tiffany Tsao gives new meaning to matrescence and asks us to consider—truly consider—the absurd expectations so often placed on new mothers. The accompanying theme of being minority Chinese in Southeast Asia and Australia also shines through, simultaneously celebration and lamentation. BUT WON’T I MISS ME tells all the truth slant in the best possible way. — YZ Chin, author of Edge CaseNew mothers possess superhuman abilities and sustainable electricity wards off the climate crisis in this clever blend of fantasy and speculative fiction from Tsao. . . Tsao cannily uses the fantastical elements to explore a new mother’s anxieties about measuring up to other mothers. It’s worth a look. — Publishers Weekly