Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
This novel is about women and girls and the choices they make. No, it’s about a stultifyingly banal and conventional neighborhood/town and how it changes the people who live there. No, it’s about an artist and a journalist and the way their children influence each other. No, it’s about a custody case of a poor woman’s baby. It’s about all these things, but any one of those things kind of doesn’t do it justice.
Mia and Pearl live an itinerant lifestyle, going from town to town as the mood strikes Mia. Elena and her four children live a perfect life in the perfect suburb of Shaker Heights, where everything is beautiful and people only grow flowers, never vegetables in their spacious and manicured lawns. When Mia and Pearl rent out Elena Richardson’s rental unit, Elena’s son befriends Pearl and their fates are set. Soon, Mia is working as a housekeeper at the Richardsons, Pearl is spending all her time over there, and Elena’s youngest daughter Isabel is spending all her time at Mia’s house.
The event that signals the beginning of the end is when Bee Bee Chao, who has been searching for her baby daughter since she was forced to abandon her at a fire station, learns that the baby is pending adoption by one of Mrs. Richardson’s childhood friends, Maureen. Maureen is married, well-off and desperate for a child. Bee Bee is poor and had been abandoned by the child’s father, which is why she was desperate enough to give the baby up in the first place. Everyone in the town comes down on one side or the other. Where does the baby belong, with her mother or with the rich people who are desperate to adopt her? When Mr. Richardson becomes the lawyer defending Maureen and her husband, the lines are drawn more clearly.
But everyone has their own history. From surrogacy to infertility to abortion, this novel explores the emotional aspects of pregnancy and childbearing from all sides. Class and wealth also plays a part. Mrs. Richardson clearly believes strongly in the value of raising children with all the comforts of class and money. Pearl is delighted to finally have her own room, her own things and she revels in the easy comforts of the Richardson household. And yet, Mrs. Richardson is not the one her daughters turn to when things become difficult. Mrs. Richardson is wealthy and generous, and yet you see that her generosity comes with strings. She wants to help because she wants to control. Mia isn’t the perfect mother, but Mia seems to understand people so deeply, and Mia has gained something that Elena gave up when she chose her middle-class success story.
I very much enjoyed this novel. I listened to it as an audiobook from audible and found it engrossing. All the characters felt believable and interesting, with the possible exception of Tripp and Mr. Richardson, who felt lightly sketched. Still, it’s a solid novel and I recommend it.
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