Secrets and Lies OR Unhappy Families Make Great Novels

Thanks to the CBR7 folks whose positive reviews of this book helped put it on my radar when I was in the airport gift store, looking for something to read. Celeste Ng has created a powerful novel (I can’t believe it’s a debut) that captures the complexity of many things—growing up in the Midwest in the 1970’s, being the Other in a variety of situations, and the way parents and children fail to understand each other.

The novel begins with the drowning death of Lydia Lee, the middle child and teenage daughter of Marilyn and James Lee.   Lydia is the golden child, groomed for great things both by her mother and father, and her death throws the family into chaos but also propels both Nath, her older brother, and Hannah, her younger sister, out from underneath their sister’s shadow. The novel moves back and forth in time and we get powerful glimpses into the lives of all the members of the Lee family and the forces that shape them and their relationships with each other.

One of mysteries at the heart of the novel is Lydia’s death. Why was she out in a boat in the middle of the lake when she couldn’t swim? Was it an accident, murder, or suicide? However, Ng has a lot to say about other issues—being Asian American in a predominantly white community, the way parents’ hopes for their children can become a type of prison, and about the tension between standing out and fitting in. This family is heartbreakingly real and the many smaller tragedies that lead up to the larger tragedy make Lydia’s final moments even more moving and her death even more of a waste.