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.
"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
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