EINTY - Whole Book (Spoilers) (Sep 2017)

[Caroline]

This book is for discussing this month's moderator pick, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng - spoilers are very welcome!

Now that you know what happened to Lydia, what do you think of the way she died? Do you think how she ultimately died mattered in the end?

What aspects of the book did you think worked best? What worked the least?

In an interview about the book, Ng said that she thinks the relationship between parents and their children is one of the strongest and probably the most important relationship any of us will have in our entire lives, particularly because they play a strong role in shaping who we become and what our outlook on life is. Do you agree?

She also said that while writing the book, she had not yet had her son so she had more sympathy for the children in the book. Once she had her son, she began identifying with Marilyn and James much more - though she claims this balanced her view and did not sway her from one side to the other. Do you identify more with one side or the other (meaning the children or the parents)? If so, why or why not?

Do you think this book works as a literary thriller? Do you think it works as a book about family?

I am curious to see what others think about the book. I greatly enjoyed it, though gave it 4 out of 5 stars because I didn't think the literary thriller aspect was particularly strong. However, I found Ng's writing style to be very strong - she manages to use relatively simple language to create subtle, yet moving moments. Also, just when I thought I'd make it through the whole book without shedding a tear, I started crying when Marilyn discovers her mother's old cook book hidden in Lydia's room.

[Kay]

I definitely identified more with the parents, even though I don't have children and have plenty to say about my parents :) but it also might be because I find the way children justify their actions in books unrealistic and/or annoying.
I didn't go into this book thinking it will be a thriller, so I wan't paying much attention to how that aspect was developed or whether it was well executed. I thought Ng's depiction of the family's relationships was really well done, and that was the main draw for me. Like Robert, I read this a while back, so I remember the emotional attachment better than specific plot points.

[Elaine]

I read this a while ago, so my memory of the plot details is also hazy. I do recall reading a review of the novel and expecting it to be a thriller, which it isn't, so I'm not sure why that aspect was hyped. For sales, I guess.

I felt for the isolation the family experienced, so ultimately this became a book about a family being marginalized for not being white, although they were middle-class. The fracturing of the family was handled well, but ultimately I found the novel somewhat weak yet still worth reading.

[PS]

I don't think this book works as a literary thriller - I think anyone who approaches it from that angle will be disappointed. I think it's a book about family and how the pressures of being outsiders (both James and Marilyn - and children of course ) can affect family dynamics.

I found it very painful to read the sections where Ng went into details of how Lydia decided to do whatever her mother wanted for her so that her mother won't ever leave the family the way she did one summer.

I too identified more with the parents - their back stories were better developed - and I understood why they acted the way they did with their children, in particular Lydia.

My heart went out to poor Hannah who was ignored by her parents until the very end of the book. I honestly think this book should be recommended reading for parents - to understand that you can't expect your children to live the life you wanted to yourself.

Things I'm still confused about: did Nath and Jack get together (it's sort of implied in the end?) and whether or not Lydia's death was an accident. Although none of this affected my enjoyment of the novel.

I don't think it mattered how she died - the fact of the matter was that she was under tremendous pressure and felt her brother slipping away from her and wanted to start all over again. I think it was quite clear that she wasn't thinking straight - I don't think a non swimmer would row out to the middle of a lake in the middle of the night and decide to swim back. It's unrealistic – which shows that Lydia wasn't thinking normally because of her depression.

[SueLucie]

I wondered too about Nath and Jack. I came away thinking Lydia's drowning was an accident and so much more poignant for that.

I wouldn't say I identified with any of the characters but I felt more for the children, all of them including Jack. The family dynamic was far and away the most interesting aspect for me and I thought she handled this superbly.

As others have said, for publishers to label this book as a thriller is misleading and I don't think the author intended it to be one (in much the same way, I have seen people criticising the sublime 'Reservoir 13' by Jon McGregor for not solving the mystery of the missing teenager).

[Hugh]

I enjoyed the first half much more than the second - it got very bleak and depressing, and in the end I felt Ng just overdid all of the misunderstandings and betrayals to the point where the redemption at the end felt contrived and over-sentimental. This was a shame as there were elements of this book that hinted at better things. Sorry, but in the end this one did not quite work for me.

[Hugh]

Selling this as a literary thriller seems just as idiotic as selling Reservoir 13 as a murder mystery, but I wonder if it is inevitable that a book that starts with an unexplained death or disappearance ends up being sold that way - blurb writers are pretty unsophisticated readers and tend to give too much weight to the first few pages.

[PS]

Hugh wrote: "Selling this as a literary thriller seems just as idiotic as selling Reservoir 13 as a murder mystery, but I wonder if it is inevitable that a book that starts with an unexplained death or disappea..."

Well said Hugh. Sadly, I guess it's easier to market a literary thriller as opposed to a character portrait of a (Chinese American) family as misleading as that may be.

The ending felt contrived to me too, which is why despite the excellent writing and interesting plot (I especially loved the back stories of the parents), this novel didn't work for me either.

[Robert]

It's the constant pessimism which got to me. One gets the impression that once you emigrate it's nothing but eternal sadness

[Marc]

Robert wrote: "It's the constant pessimism which got to me. One gets the impression that once you emigrate it's nothing but eternal sadness"
Did you get the sense this had much to do with the setting? The father essentially tries to erase his race through locale, marriage, academic topic, etc. While it certainly touches on issues familiar to many immigrants, it's definitely an extreme tale of individuals... or maybe a tale of extreme individuals when it comes to the parents.

[Robert]

Of course but it borders on the excessive being both an emigrant and an immigrant there are those elements but not to those lengths

[Hugh]

... and she didn't need to make so much of the book so relentlessly bleak - I always felt there was another disastrous misunderstanding coming.

[PS]

Robert wrote: "Of course but it borders on the excessive being both an emigrant and an immigrant there are those elements but not to those lengths"

I get where you are coming from but it couldn't have been easy to be Chinese (or any other person of colour) in the US in the 70s and earlier. It still isn't.

Here's what Ng had to say about the racism in her book:

"An early Goodreads commenter remarked that the racism in the book was unbelievable—she felt it might have been realistic “in the 1920s, maybe, but not in the 1970s.” And at one of the first readings I did, someone asked, “How did you research the racism?” The sad truth is that I didn’t need to do a lot of research on that front: with one exception, every racially-tinged encounter in the novel—from the more outright discrimination to the many microaggressions, intentional or not—is something that’s happened to me, to family, or to someone I know personally."


hipporeads.com/write-what-terrifies-y...

[Kay]

I was just about to push back on the bleakness, but Sofia, you beat me to it. I found this book just bleak and depressing enough. That was life in the US for immigrants then and to a large extent today. The 'land of immigrants' is notorious for being terrible to the newest immigrant group, until (if) they are fully accepted.
It also might be my taste but I find darker books refreshing - they tell a more realistic story to me. Granted, all that let to a very sentimental and rather contrived ending in the end (as Hugh and Sofia mention), and made me question some of the characters' choices, but for a debut especially I thought it was a good novel.

[Nutmegger]

I was drawn to the family relations aspect of the book much more than any thriller experience.

[Nutmegger]

Kay wrote: "I was just about to push back on the bleakness, but Sofia, you beat me to it. I found this book just bleak and depressing enough. That was life in the US for immigrants then and to a large extent t..."

I totally agree on the appeal of darker books. I don't always need a book to be uplifting and often enjoy one that displays the more disturbing side of life.

[Hugh]

I certainly did not intend to say that I don't like darker and bleaker subjects, and I have read plenty that deal with darker, bleaker and more disturbing subjects than this one.

To me it just felt rather unsubtle - it was only the last chapter that was not events building up to some inevitable disappointment or misunderstanding, and in my view this could have been leavened without weakening the book.

[Marc]

I thought the racism was handled very well--some of it was in the father's head (anticipating and expecting it, almost like post-traumatic stress disorder), but it popped up in actual behavior/discrimination in very realistic ways without being overdone, IMHO. But James kind of lives in fear--one of his first reactions to Marilyn wass:

... then she pulled him to her again. It was as if America herself was taking him in. It was too much luck. He feared the day the universe would notice he wasn’t supposed to have her and take her away. Or that she might suddenly realize her mistake and disappear from his life as suddenly as she had entered. After a while, the fear became a habit, too.

There is a wonderful rhythm to Ng's writing and she really gets you to feel her characters' points of view. I would have considered this a worthwhile read solely for the passage about the Betty Crocker cookbook (the lines her mother underlined, it's impact on Marilyn, and then how it became symbolic to mother and daughter, as well as an odd connection through the generations).

I also found the end rather contrived, but I'm still trying to figure out what I think about the decision to let the reader know what went on in Lydia's mind before dying (that it was actually an accident and she had rather positively decided to face her fears and take hold of her life) when the other characters are barred from this info. My gut reaction was that this turned it into a sort of feel-good ending that provided emotional closure (or just relief) for the reader. Whereas, this "discovery" is mostly withheld from the other characters. In a sense, this should have given the ending even more bleakness (family doesn't truly know their daughter didn't commit suicide), but it seemed to give a positive note to everything. Thoughts?

[SueLucie]

I thought our discovery that Lydia's drowning was an accident and that it happened while she was trying to 'reinvent' herself was the saddest thing but I take your point that it was certainly a contrived way of solving the mystery. The idea of an accident added to the experience for me but I'm not sure it added a positive note. I did think, though, that we are led to believe that Nath, for one, and possibly Hannah go on to live happier lives, despite still not knowing what their sister was doing out there on the lake.

[Marc]

Sue wrote: "I did think, though, that we are led to believe that Nath, for one, and possibly Hannah go on to live happier lives, despite still not knowing what their sister was doing out there on the lake. "

I also got that impression. I feel somewhat wrong in writing this, but Lydia's death seems like a good thing for the family. The parents are forced to face some of their issues, the other children are no longer virtually invisible, Marilyn is not maniacally trying to relive her life through her eldest daughter, etc. None of this was Lydia's fault in any way.

The book really does pull in a lot of different directions--it is incredibly sad that she died by accident while trying to "reinvent" her self, while it's also good to know she wasn't murdered and did not willfully take her own life.

All those empty journals on Lydia's shelf... The feigned phone conversations with no one on the other line... Gut-punching sadness.

[Caroline]

Marc, I think your comments sum up my feelings on the book too, especially about the rhythm of Ng's writing and racism always playing into everything, particularly in James' head. It seems as though Lydia's death has forced everything back out into the open and the characters have no force but to talk about the things they've been holding back, or have feared others have held back. James is stung by Marilyn's use of the word "kowtow," while Marilyn is horrified to learn that James overheard her mother's words to her about how hard life would be for the children of a mixed race couple.

I'm not sure how this story would have succeeded without a similar level of bleakness, or sadness. While race is the overriding theme, there are many other issues at play here - parents wanting the best for their kids, even if that means pursuing dreams they weren't able to, gender roles and expectations - Marilyn wants more than anything to become a doctor but then she becomes pregnant, James doesn't want her to work because it will make him look weak, and the only person who seems to believe in this dream is herself - when she calls that one professor up to ask about being his assistant, he laughs at her, claiming he didn't believe she was serious. Marilyn also does not want to be her mother and hates herself when she finds her mother's cookbook and realizes that she has essentially become all the things her mother wanted her to become (other than the wife of an Asian-American).

I wasn't sure how to feel about the end chapter either and the reveal of what Lydia had been thinking at the time of her death. On one hand, it doesn't really matter what she thought because the rest of the family will never know. On the other, it does seem unrealistic that a teenager would believe she could reinvent herself by swimming across the lake. However, I wonder whether Lydia knew deep down that she wouldn't make it and that she was only telling herself this to mask the overwhelming sadness and turmoil she felt within her. Optimistically, she thought if she could make it to land, she could fix everything, including all the strained relationships within the family. If she didn't make it, she would be resolving matters in another way by removing herself from the picture.

Thanks for the comments everyone! It's been interesting to see where this book worked for people and where it didn't.

[Dan]

September 24th New York Times Book Review has interesting conversation with Celeste Ng: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/bo....

[Sarah]

I really enjoyed this book. The way the family relationships are described both past and present make you really understand the way the characters are feeling. I like the way that although Lydia is the focus of the family, she isn't the focus of the book but all the members around her. I think the racism theme is very strong and has such an impact on the family that it's very true to real life.

I couldn't stop turning the pages as felt like an outsider looking Into a struggling family and wanted to find out what happened to them in the end

[Elaine]

Interesting what you say, Sarah, about feeling like an outsider watching what was happening to this family. I think Ng's ability to convey that feeling is a big plus for her as a writer. I also found there was a great sense of emptiness, which could perhaps be construed as a deficiency of the novel. This emptiness reverberates in the narrative and is truly sad, even tragic given what happened. In addition, the parents sacrificed so much of themselves to conform to white middle-class standards and make themselves acceptable. They were merely tolerated, and rendered invisible.

[Beverly]

This was a 3.5 read for me when I read it in 2014.

The first line pulled me.
I enjoyed the first half more than the second.
I liked learning about the parents up bringing as I thought it influenced who they became as adults.
I loved the youngest daughter - remembering thinking she was more perceptive on what was going as often happens when ignored.

While it was not one of my fav reads I felt the parents pain/grief over their daughter. I thought that part of the book was well done.

[Beverly]

Marc wrote: "Sue wrote: "I did think, though, that we are led to believe that Nath, for one, and possibly Hannah go on to live happier lives, despite still not knowing what their sister was doing out there on t..."

Your comments reminded me of my feelings for Lydia.
Her parents were so concerned with imposing their dreams on her that she could not be herself around them.

Those scenes were heartbreaking.

Being a parent is the hardest job in the world and it is important to let them be who they want to be (within reason). There is enough pressure on children together,

[Sarah]

Elaine I completely agree I feel so sorry for them as they feel they cannot embrace who they really are for fear of not being accepted. It also shows how parents can push their beliefs onto their children and without knowing it continue that pattern of behaviour to the next generation.It shows how destructive this can be. I felt completely sorry for what this family went through even before Lydia died.

[Caroline]

Dan, thanks for sharing the link.

Sarah - that's a good point about Lydia being the center of the family but not being the center of the book. And Elaine - I agree about the sense of emptiness throughout the book. It's natural for us as readers to want some sort of resolution, or perhaps for the characters to feel some joy or any emotion other than sadness, anxiety, frustration, or fear. However, I think that feeling of emptiness in the book, adds complexity and makes the situation feel more real.