{"id":55054,"date":"2017-11-05T05:11:05","date_gmt":"2017-11-05T05:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55054"},"modified":"2017-11-05T05:11:05","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T05:11:05","slug":"celeste-ng-its-a-novel-about-race-and-class-and-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55054","title":{"rendered":"Celeste Ng: \u2018It\u2019s a novel about race, and class and privilege\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celeste Ng: \u2018It\u2019s a novel about race, and class and privilege\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2017-11-04<\/p>\n

Paul Laity<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nCeleste Ng<\/a> \u2026 \u2018I have an interest in the outsider.\u2019 Photograph: Robert Gumpert for the Guardian<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The books interview: the bestselling US author on family, fitting in and giving a voice to those without power in her new book, <\/em>Little Fires Everywhere<\/a><\/p>\n

Celeste Ng\u2019s<\/a> first novel Everything I Never Told You<\/em><\/a> opens with 16-year-old Lydia Lee found drowned in a lake. She was her parents\u2019 favourite, the opposite of a troublemaker, an innocent. How did it happen, who was responsible for her death? And can the family survive?<\/p>\n

The mystery of Lydia\u2019s fate propels the narrative, which is tightly focused on one couple and their mixed-race children in 1970s suburban America \u2013 the secrets that have been kept, the hopes dashed, the sense of not fitting in. A page-turning literary thriller that is also a thought-provoking exploration of parenthood and family life, the novel enjoyed huge success \u2013 critics\u2019 accolades, big sales and selection by Amazon editors as their 2014 book of the year.<\/p>\n

Ng\u2019s follow-up, Little Fires Everywhere<\/em><\/a>, also begins memorably, with a large, elegant house on an affluent street in flames. It belongs to Elena and Bill Richardson, a picture-perfect married couple with four teenage kids. \u201cThe firemen said there were little fires everywhere,\u201d one of the children reports: \u201cMultiple points of origin. Possible use of accelerant. Not an accident.\u201d Another mystery: who did it and why? On the same day, bohemian Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl, who have become closely entangled with the Richardsons, pack up and leave town…<\/p>\n

…Ng\u2019s husband is white; they have a biracial son, and her first novel is interested too in the idea of feeling \u201cother\u201d even within one\u2019s own family \u2013 how two parents can view the same events in contrasting ways. There are occasions when Ng and her husband are still brought up short by the realisation they have \u201clived in two different worlds\u201d. At moments of tension \u2013 one incident at airport security, for instance, or another while getting their son a passport \u2013 he assumes he\u2019ll be given the benefit of the doubt, she says, whereas \u201cmy understanding is that you have to toe the line or you\u2019ll be in trouble\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The books interview: the bestselling US author on family, fitting in and giving a voice to those without power in her new book, “Little Fires Everywhere”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,1196,8,20],"tags":[17649,27570,2103],"class_list":["post-55054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-celeste-ng","tag-paul-laity","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55055,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55054\/revisions\/55055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}