The Nile on eBay Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • Winner of the Alex Award and the Massachusetts Book Award • Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Grantland Booklist, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, School Library Journal, Bustle, and Time Our New YorkThe acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts"A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense." —O, the Oprah Magazine"Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family." —Entertainment Weekly"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Author Biography
Celeste Ng is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere. Her third novel, Our Missing Hearts, will be published in October 2022. Ng is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and her work has been published in over thirty languages.
Review
"If we know this story, we haven't seen it yet in American fiction, not until now . . . Ng has set two tasks in this novel's doubled heart—to be exciting, and to tell a story bigger than whatever is behind the crime. She does both by turning the nest of familial resentments into at least four smaller, prickly mysteries full of secrets the family members won't share . . . What emerges is a deep, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling with its place in history, and a young woman hoping to be the fulfillment of that struggle. This is, in the end, a novel about the burden of being the first of your kind—a burden you do not always survive." —Alexander Chee, bestselling author of Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night"Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family, Ng's explosive debut chronicles the plight of Marilyn and James Lee after their favored daughter is found dead in a lake." —Entertainment Weekly"Excellent . . . an accomplished debut . . . heart-wrenching . . . Ng deftly pulls together the strands of this complex, multigenerational novel. Everything I Never Told You is an engaging work that casts a powerful light on the secrets that have kept an American family together—and that finally end up tearing it apart." —Los Angeles Times"Tender and merciless all at once . . . Vital in all the essential ways." —Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing, A National Book Award winner"Wonderfully moving . . . Emotionally precise . . . A beautifully crafted study of dysfunction and grief . . . [This book] will resonate with anyone who has ever had a family drama." —Boston Globe"A powerhouse of a debut novel, a literary mystery crafted out of shimmering prose and precise, painful observation about racial barriers, the burden of familial expectations, and the basic human thirst for belonging . . . Ng's novel grips readers from page one with the hope of unraveling the mystery behind Lydia's death—and boy does it deliver, on every front." —Huffington Post"A subtle meditation on gender, race and the weight of one generation's unfulfilled ambitions upon the shoulders—and in the heads—of the next . . . Ng deftly and convincingly illustrates the degree to which some miscommunications can never quite be rectified." —San Francisco Chronicle"Cleverly crafted, emotionally perceptive . . . Ng sensitively dramatizes issues of gender and race that lie at the heart of the story . . . Ng's themes of assimilation are themselves deftly interlaced into a taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense." —O, The Oprah Magazine"Ng moves gracefully back and forth in time, into the aftermath of the tragedy as well as the distant past, and into the consciousness of each member of the family, creating a series of mysteries and revelations that lead back to the original question: what happened to Lydia? . . . Ng is masterful in her use of the omniscient narrator, achieving both a historical distance and visceral intimacy with each character's struggles and failures . . . On the surface, Ng's storylines are nothing new. There is a mysterious death, a family pulled apart by misunderstanding and grief, a struggle to fit into the norms of society, yet in the weaving of these threads she creates a work of ambitious complexity. In the end, this novel movingly portrays the burden of difference at a time when difference had no cultural value . . . Compelling." —Los Angeles Review of Books"The mysterious circumstances of 16-year-old Lydia Lee's tragic death have her loved ones wondering how, exactly, she spent her free time. This ghostly debut novel calls to mind The Lovely Bones." —Marie Claire"The first chapter of Celeste Ng's debut novel is difficult—the oldest daughter in a family is dead—but what follows is a brilliantly written, surprisingly uplifting exploration of striving in the face of alienation and of the secrets we keep from others. This could be my favorite novel of the year." —Chris Schluep, Parade"The emotional core of Celeste Ng's debut is what sets it apart. The different ways in which the Lee family handles Lydia's death create internal friction, and most impressive is the way Ng handles racial politics. With a deft hand, she loads and unpacks the implications of being the only Chinese American family in a small town in Ohio." —Kevin Nguyen, Grantland"Beautiful and poignant . . . deftly drawn . . . . It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel for Celeste Ng. She tackles the themes of family dynamics, gender and racial stereotyping, and the weight of expectations, all with insight made more powerful through understatement. She has an exact, sophisticated touch with her prose. The sentences are straightforward. She evokes emotions through devastatingly detailed observations." —Cleveland Plain-Dealer"Perceptive . . . a skillful and moving portrayal of a family in pain . . . It is to Ng's credit that it is sometimes difficult for the reader to keep going; the pain and unhappiness is palpable. But it is true to the Lees, and Ng tells all." —Minneapolis Star Tribune"Impressive . . . In its evocation of a time and place and society largely gone but hardly forgotten, Everything I Never Told You tells much that today's reader should learn, ponder and appreciate." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review Quote
"If we know this story, we haven''t seen it yet in American fiction, not until now . . . Ng has set two tasks in this novel''s doubled heart--to be exciting, and to tell a story bigger than whatever is behind the crime. She does both by turning the nest of familial resentments into at least four smaller, prickly mysteries full of secrets the family members won''t share . . . What emerges is a deep, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling with its place in history, and a young woman hoping to be the fulfillment of that struggle. This is, in the end, a novel about the burden of being the first of your kind--a burden you do not always survive." -- Alexander Chee, The New York Times Book Review "Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family, Ng''s explosive debut chronicles the plight of Marilyn and James Lee after their favored daughter is found dead in a lake." -- Entertainment Weekly "Excellent...an accomplished debut . . . heart-wrenching . . . Ng deftly pulls together the strands of this complex, multigenerational novel. Everything I Never Told You is an engaging work that casts a powerful light on the secrets that have kept an American family together--and that finally end up tearing it apart." -- Los Angeles Times "Tender and merciless all at once . . . Vital in all the essential ways." --Jesmyn Ward "Wonderfully moving . . . Emotionally precise . . . A beautifully crafted study of dysfunction and grief...[This book] will resonate with anyone who has ever had a family drama." -- Boston Globe "A powerhouse of a debut novel, a literary mystery crafted out of shimmering prose and precise, painful observation about racial barriers, the burden of familial expectations, and the basic human thirst for belonging . . . Ng''s novel grips readers from page one with the hope of unraveling the mystery behind Lydia''s death--and boy does it deliver, on every front." -- Huffington Post "A subtle meditation on gender, race and the weight of one generation''s unfulfilled ambitions upon the shoulders--and in the heads--of the next . . . Ng deftly and convincingly illustrates the degree to which some miscommunications can never quite be rectified." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Cleverly crafted, emotionally perceptive . . . Ng sensitively dramatizes issues of gender and race that lie at the heart of the story . . . Ng''s themes of assimilation are themselves deftly interlaced into a taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense." -- O, The Oprah Magazine "Ng moves gracefully back and forth in time, into the aftermath of the tragedy as well as the distant past, and into the consciousness of each member of the family, creating a series of mysteries and revelations that lead back to the original question: what happened to Lydia? . . . Ng is masterful in her use of the omniscient narrator, achieving both a historical distance and visceral intimacy with each character''s struggles and failures . . . On the surface, Ng''s storylines are nothing new. There is a mysterious death, a family pulled apart by misunderstanding and grief, a struggle to fit into the norms of society, yet in the weaving of these threads she creates a work of ambitious complexity. In the end, this novel movingly portrays the burden of difference at a time when difference had no cultural value . . . Compelling." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "The mysterious circumstances of 16-year-old Lydia Lee''s tragic death have her loved ones wondering how, exactly, she spent her free time. This ghostly debut novel calls to mind The Lovely Bones ." -- Marie Claire "The first chapter of Celeste Ng''s debut novel is difficult--the oldest daughter in a family is dead--but what follows is a brilliantly written, surprisingly uplifting exploration of striving in the face of alienation and of the secrets we keep from others. This could be my favorite novel of the year." -- Chris Schluep, Parade "The emotional core of Celeste Ng''s debut is what sets it apart. The different ways in which the Lee family handles Lydia''s death create internal friction, and most impressive is the way Ng handles racial politics. With a deft hand, she loads and unpacks the implications of being the only Chinese American family in a small town in Ohio." -- Kevin Nguyen, Grantland "Beautiful and poignant . . . deftly drawn . . . . It''s hard to believe that this is a debut novel for Celeste Ng. She tackles the themes of family dynamics, gender and racial stereotyping, and the weight of expectations, all with insight made more powerful through understatement. She has an exact, sophisticated touch with her prose. The sentences are straightforward. She evokes emotions through devastatingly detailed observations." -- Cleveland Plain-Dealer "Perceptive...a skillful and moving portrayal of a family in pain . . . It is to Ng''s credit that it is sometimes difficult for the reader to keep going; the pain and unhappiness is palpable. But it is true to the Lees, and Ng tells all." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune "Impressive . . . In its evocation of a time and place and society largely gone but hardly forgotten, Everything I Never Told You tells much that today''s reader should learn, ponder and appreciate." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Description for Reading Group Guide
A Conversation with Celeste Ng What compelled you to write this book? My stories almost always begin with images--in this case, the image of a young girl falling into deep water. I started writing to figure out how she got there: Was she pushed? Did she slip? Did she jump? As I wrote my way into the book, I discovered it was a story about not just the girl but about her family, her family''s history, and everything in her life that had led her to this point--and about whether (and how) her family would be able to go on. What seemed like the end of the story actually turned out to be the center. The discovery of Lydia''s death spurs countless questions for her family. How did you approach writing about loss and grief? When you lose someone you love, especially suddenly, there''s immense regret and immense self-doubt. It''s impossible not to ask yourself questions: Could you have saved them in some way? Could you, by leaving five minutes later or arriving a day earlier or saying just the right words, have changed what happened? Inevitably, you reconsider and reassess the relationship you had with that person, and it can be hardest if that relationship was strained. James, Marilyn, Nath, and Hannah each feel a lot of guilt about their relationships with Lydia--and the ways that, deep down, they know they''ve pressured, disappointed, or failed her--and that complicates their reactions to her death. Any act of writing is an act of empathy: you try to imagine yourself into another person''s mind and skin. I tried to ask myself the questions the characters would have asked themselves. The relationships between the siblings--Nath, Lydia, and Hannah--are immediately recognizable and so well-drawn. They love each other, but they also get angry, jealous, and confused and take it out on each other. Can you speak to their dynamics? Did you draw on your own childhood? Sibling relationships are fascinating: you have the same parents and grow up alongside each other, yet more often than not, siblings are incredibly different from one another and have incredibly different experiences even within the same family. You share so much that you feel you should understand one another completely, yet of course there''s also enough distance between you that''s almost never the case. It gets even more complicated when one sibling is clearly the favorite in the family: the family constellation can get really skewed when one star shines much brighter than the rest. My own sister is eleven years older than I am. Because she was so much older, we never really fought; I actually think our relationship was stronger because we weren''t close in age. At the same time, though, I missed her terribly when I was seven and she went off to college--that informed Lydia''s feelings of abandonment when Nath heads to Harvard. And I always idolized my sister; there''s definitely an aspect of that in Hannah''s relationship with Lydia. You began writing the book before you had your son. How did becoming a parent affect your approach to your characters and their stories, especially James and Marilyn? Even before I had children, I often found myself focusing on parents and children in my fiction. Your relationship with your parents is maybe the most fundamental and the most powerful, even more than friendship or romantic love: it''s the first relationship you ever have, and it''s probably the greatest single influence on your outlook and the kind of person you become. Most of us spend our lives either trying to live up to our parents'' ideals or actively rebelling against them. When I started writing the novel--having never been a parent--I definitely identified more with the children, especially Lydia. After my son was born, though, I became much more sympathetic to Marilyn and James. I started to understand how deeply parents want the best for their children, and how that desire can sometimes blind you to what actually is best. This isn''t to say that I "switched sides"; only that becoming a parent made my perspective more balanced, I think, and made the book more nuanced. Now I identify with the parents at least as much as I identify with the children. The book is set in Ohio in the 1970s. You grew up in Pennsylvania and Ohio--how did your time there inform the book? Both of the small suburbs I grew up in--first outside of Pittsburgh, then outside of Cleveland--had a small-town feel. My first elementary school was tiny, one of those schools where the gym is also the cafeteria and the auditorium, and on my street the neighbor kids all played together. But more than that, I remember a distinct sense of restlessness in the air while I was growing up, a feeling that if you wanted an exciting or important or interesting life, you needed to escape. Pittsburgh in the 1980s and Cleveland in the early 1990s were depressed and depressing places: a lot of closed factories, a lot of tension and unemployment, a lot of rust. So I knew the kind of insulated, almost suffocated feeling teenagers like Nath and Lydia--and even adults like James and Marilyn--might have, the feeling that the place you''re in is too small. Through all members of the Lee family, you write touchingly and perceptively about feeling like an outsider and being measured against stereotypes and others'' perceptions. Can you discuss your personal experience and how you approached these themes in the book? My parents came to the United States from Hong Kong and moved straight into the Midwest: Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Most of the time I was growing up, we were virtually the only Asians in the community. In my school in Pittsburgh, for instance, I was one of two non-white girls, and the only Asian, in all four grades. Like most Asian Americans, my family experienced some outright discrimination. Once, neighborhood kids put cherry bombs in our mailbox; another time, a man got in our faces while we were waiting at a bus stop, spitting at us and telling us, "Go back to Vietnam or Korea or wherever the hell you came from." More insidious than those moments of outright hostility, though, and maybe more powerful, are the constant low-level reminders that you''re different. Many of us feel different in some way, but it''s really jarring when one of your differences is obvious at a glance--other people can tell you''re different simply by looking at you. (It''s hard to explain just how strange that is if you''ve never experienced it. My husband and I had talked about it many times, but he didn''t really know what it felt like until we went to Hong Kong and he--a very tall white man--was surrounded by thousands of Asians.) Even when you feel like you belong, other people''s reactions--even stares and offhand remarks--can make you feel that you don''t, startlingly often. I drew on that to imagine the experiences of James, Lydia, Nath, and Hannah, or at least their reactions to those experiences. In terms of actual encounters, I didn''t have to imagine much; they all came from life, from the girls who throw rocks at James''s car to the people who speak to you slower and louder as if you might not understand English to the woman in the grocery store who proudly identifies the children as Chinese before pulling her eyes into slits. In the novel, though, I didn''t want to explore just racial difference--there are all kinds of ways of feeling like an outsider. For example, my mother is a chemist and my sister is a scientist--both women in heavily male-dominated fields--and I often feel like an outsider or an imposter myself: am I smart enough/experienced enough/insert-adjective-here enough? All of the characters grapple with some version of that feeling. Marilyn is deeply conflicted about being a homemaker and wanting to finish her degree and achieving more in her professional life. What did you seek to explore through her desires and decisions? This is a long-standing question that most women face: how to balance a family and a professional life of your own? I struggle with this myself, as does every other woman I know, and Marilyn''s situation is a magnified version. It''s striking to remember that in her time--just a generation ago--she had so many fewer paths open to her. But even with more options, we haven''t gotten this figured out yet, either. We''re still actively wrestling with the question of balance and women''s roles: look at the tremendous interest in Lean In and the uproar over Anne-Marie Slaughter''s essay in The Atlantic, "Why Women Still Can''t Have It All." Recently a Princeton alumna wrote an open letter telling young female grads that the most important thing to do in college was to find a husband. Many women were outraged--but she also just published a book. The debate over what women can and should do goes on. Marilyn and James are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue, and we see the pressure this puts on Lydia and how it affects her. Today, parenting has evolved in myriad ways, but the ultimate aim is still to try to provide a better life for the next generation. How do parents'' hopes and fears for their children resonate through the book? At my son''s preschool, I heard a group of moms comparing notes on what classes they''d enrolled their not-quite-three-year-olds in: music, art, swim, soccer, ballet. This isn''t unusual, nor is it limited to hobbies and sports. Think about all the tools now available to help parents teach their kids, from flashcards and educational apps to extra tutoring and SAT prep classes. Why? It really does come from love and wanting to give your child opportunities, especially if you didn''t have those opportunities yourself. It''s hard not to think and hope that your children might achieve great things--and to believe that they can accomplish anything if you only give them a boost
Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide
1. Discuss the relationships between Nath, Lydia, and Hannah. How do the siblings both understand and mystify one another? 2. Why do you think Lydia is the favorite child of James and Marilyn? How does this pressure affect Lydia, and what kind of impact do you think it has on Nath and Hannah? Do you think it is more difficult for Lydia to be the favorite, or for Nath and Hannah, who are often overlooked by their parents? 3. "So part of him wanted to tell Nath that he knew: what it was like to be teased, what it was like to never fit in. The other part of him wanted to shake his son, to slap him. To shape him into something different. . . . When Marilyn asked what happened, James said merely, with a wave of the hand, 'Some kids teased him at the pool yesterday. He needs to learn to take a joke.'" How did you react to the "Marco Polo" pool scene with James and Nath? What do you think of James's decision? 4. Discuss a situation in which you've felt like an outsider. How do the members of the Lee family deal with being measured against stereotypes and others' perceptions? 5. What is the meaning of the novel's title? To whom do the "I" and "you" refer? 6. What would have happened if Lydia had reached the dock? Do you think she would have been able to change her parents' views and expectations of her? 7. This novel says a great deal about the influence our parents can have on us. Do you think the same issues will affect the next generation of Lees? How did your parents influence your childhood? 8. "It struck her then, as if someone had said it aloud: her mother was dead, and the only thing worth remembering about her, in the end, was that she cooked. Marilyn thought uneasily of her own life, of hours spent making breakfasts, serving dinners, packing lunches into neat paper bags." Discuss the relationship Marilyn and her mother have to cooking and their roles as stay-at-home mothers. Do you think one is happier or more satisfied? 9. The footprint on the ceiling brings Nath and Lydia closer when they are young, and later, Hannah and James discover it together and laugh. What other objects bring the characters closer together or drive them further apart? 10. There's so much that the characters keep to themselves. What do you wish they had shared with one another? Do you think an ability to better express themselves would have changed the outcome of the book?
Excerpt from Book
***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright
Details ISBN0143127551 Author Celeste Ng Short Title EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU Language English ISBN-10 0143127551 ISBN-13 9780143127550 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 2015 Subtitle A Novel Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2015-05-12 NZ Release Date 2015-05-12 US Release Date 2015-05-12 Publication Date 2015-05-12 UK Release Date 2015-05-12 Pages 336 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Penguin USA Audience General We've got this
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