Everything I never told you

by Celeste Ng

This is a debut novel by an American writer of Chinese background which has become a bestseller and has been translated into 15 languages.  It will also be made into a film.  Celeste Ng was born in Pittsburgh in 1980.  Her parents were scientists who emigrated to the U.S. in 1968 from Hong Kong.  She has now published a second novel, “Little Fires Everywhere” which has also been very successful.

The book relates the story of a couple made up of a husband of Chinese origin and an American wife and their three children. It examines the relationship between these family members and traces the history of the marriage of the parents and their lives in a small community in Ohio in the 1970’s.  Two main issues are examined during the course of the story – racism,  especially as experienced by the Chinese father and his assimilation into American society, and the effects of those experiences on the marriage and the children.   The second main issue is the situation of women of that period, whose skills and ambitions were most often frustrated by being confined the role of mother and homemaker.  The dramatic event which begins the story is slowly revealed and is the main theme from which we learn about this family from various points of view. 

We all enjoyed the book.  We learned a lot about how Asians were treated within American society during that time, and found out how much prejudice and intolerance existed toward them.  We also found that the characters were all very well depicted and the secrets that each of them keeps were treated with sensitivity and subtlety.

 Many of us are married to husbands from a different culture and we compared our own experiences to the ones presented in the book.  We found many differences with Celest Ng’s characters.  Is it because we live in a Europe and not in the USA?  Of course, it is also true that none of us married someone of a different race.    

The style of writing is fluid and the writer keeps our interest until the very end.  The consensus was that it was a good choice for our book club.

Christine

June 2018