She would help Lydia do everything she was capable of. “Marilyn would not be like her own mother, shunting her daughter toward husband and house, a life spent safely behind a deadbolt. Her mother has a single-minded devotion to ensuring that Lydia receives the best education possible so that nothing can be denied her. Her father is obsessed with Lydia fitting in and being socially successful. Not surprisingly, they work out their psychological and emotional issues in the lives of their children, especially middle child Lydia. But they love each other and are determined to make their unorthodox marriage work. James has been scarred by his experiences growing up and in college Marilyn feels her ambitious life plan was derailed by marriage and an early pregnancy.
We work our way backwards through the lives of her father James, a Chinese-American who is a college professor, and her mother, Marilyn, a white woman from Virginia who marries James in 1958, when such a marriage is against the law in half the country. The pleasure in reading Ng’s book is in the way she unfolds the story. Was it an accident, homicide, suicide? How did it happen and who was involved? But it is also a literary mystery, as the narrative methodically investigates Lydia’s life to find the answer to her untimely death. Everything I Never Told You, set in Ohio in 1977, is a character study of the Lee family, both as five individuals and as a unit with very complex dynamics. We learn in the first line that 16-year-old “Lydia is dead.” Although we know within the first paragraph what has happened and how, we don’t know the answer to the essential question when a teenager is found dead: why. The result is an absorbing and heartbreaking family drama. travel?Ĭeleste Ng’s debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, explores the many facets of this premise, particularly the effects of well-intentioned but flawed parents. participate in the family’s faith tradition.
But how exactly should one accomplish this worthy goal? Does it require the child to obtain a college education. Few would argue with the premise that it is one of the key roles of parents to guide their children to a good life, and if at all possible, a better life than that of the parents.
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