{"id":36953,"date":"2014-08-04T17:35:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T17:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36953"},"modified":"2021-11-17T02:01:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T02:01:39","slug":"everything-i-never-told-you-a-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36953","title":{"rendered":"Everything I Never Told You: A Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everything I Never Told You: A Novel<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Penguin Press<\/a>
\n2014-06-26
\n304 pages
\nHardcover ISBN: 9781594205712<\/p>\n

Celeste Ng<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lydia is dead. But they don\u2019t know this yet . . .<\/em> So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio<\/a>. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother\u2019s bright blue eyes and her father\u2019s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue\u2014in Marilyn\u2019s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James\u2019s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party.<\/p>\n

When Lydia\u2019s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia\u2019s older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it\u2019s the youngest of the family\u2014Hannah\u2014who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened.<\/p>\n

A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You<\/em> is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.<\/p>\n