by Celeste Ng, 2017
Interesting and well-written novel, although I didn’t like the setting, the characters, or the plot. Set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an affluent community, where they planned everything down to the last detail (grassy areas, trees, schools, parks, where trash cans are kept, where rental homes are built, etc.) This is an actual community and the author grew up there. There are two families involved. One is the affluent Richardson’s with 4 children: Trip, Moody, Lexy, and Izzy. The other is the Warren’s; Mom, Mia, is an artist/photographer and single-parent to Pearl, a high-school aged daughter who has moved around the country continually with her artist mom. Mia’s photography is more than just photography; she manipulates the photos by painstakingly cutting out certain parts and arranging certain things. Mia decides she and Pearl will stay in Shaker Heights and Pearl becomes involved with the Richardson’s. Izzy, the youngest, is a troubled child who finds the hope and love she needs from Mia, since her own mother, Elena, is continually disappointed in her. There are lots of secrets in Mia’s life and Elena Richardson, a reporter for the local paper, eventually finds them all out and kicks Mia and Pearl out of her rental home. The little fires everywhere comes from parting advice Mia gives to Izzy, who then starts a fire on the bed of each of her siblings and burns the Richardson’s home down. The book is full of high-school angst: he/she loves me, he/she loves me not, teenagers deciding to have sex (Lexie and her boyfriend, Trip and Pearl), getting pregnant (Lexie), having an abortion (Lexie), etc. There is also a couple who want to adopt a baby girl who was left at a fire station. Mia finds out the baby is her Chinese friend’s (Bebe,) and Bebe wants her back. There is a trial and a verdict and an eventual kidnapping.
Mia leaves a packet of photos on the kitchen table of the rental house; a photo for each of the Richardson’s. Dad’s is made out of collar stays, Mom’s (Elena) is a birdcage, Trip’s is a hockey pad pounded with nails and stuffed with dirt and growing tender little plants through the nail holes, Moody’s is the torn up journal/notebook he gave to Pearl as a gift and which she never used or cared for and which he tore up when he found out Pearl and Trip were having sex, Lexie’s is the torn up pink admission slip to the abortion clinic on which she put Pearl’s name, and Izzy’s is the black leather boots her mother threw away. Each person knew immediately which picture was their own.
I got it from a Little Free Library and left the copy in the lobby of the Travelodge in Lake Havasu City, AZ, in exchange for a puzzle there. Good trade!
Here’s something good from the author, though, in answer to a question about who deserves to be a mother:
I have friends who’ve conceived easily, who’ve struggled to conceive, who’ve adopted or gone through invasive IVF procedures or used surrogates, or who’ve decided not to conceive–and the main constant in all of their experiences seems to be judgment. Motherhood seems to be a no-win battle: however you decide to do (or not do) it, someone’s going to be criticizing you. You went to too great lengths trying to conceive. You didn’t go to great enough lengths. You had the baby too young. You should have kept the baby even though you were young. You shouldn’t have waited so long to try and have a baby. You’re a too involved mother. You’re not involved enough because you let your child play on the playground alone. It never ends.
from page 9 in the back; the Q&A with the author