Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

This poignant novel by Celeste Ng explores the deleterious effects of emotional isolation, especially in a family. James and Marilyn Lee are parents to teenagers, Nathan and Lydia, and their younger sister, Hannah. The parents do their best and still let their three kids down. They are not bad people, just wounded people. Like a forensic psychologist, Celeste Ng pieces together the factors that lead to the death of middle daughter, Lydia. It is a tragic story.

James, a gifted Chinese American student, meets his wife, Marilyn, when he is a young professor at Harvard and Marilyn is one of his undergraduates. They had both grown up as only children, isolated, alone and distant from their own parents. They fall in love, get married and cling to each other on their own emotional island. Marilyn has dreams of becoming a doctor while James seeks acceptance as a respected professor of American history. When James is denied tenure, probably due to his ethnicity, they retreat to a small college town in Ohio. 

I feel for the Lee Family and admire Ng’s excavating of their relationships. Though Marilyn and James are bright, their emotional capacities are limited. They lack the skills to help one another.  When kids arrive, they simply expand their islands of isolation. Marilyn gives up her dream of becoming a doctor, causing her great pain. The kids feel oppressed by their parents’ yearnings and desires for them. Nathan, the oldest, reminds James of his own isolation as a young person and Lydia the middle daughter becomes the repository of her mother’s thwarted ambitions. Hannah, the youngest daughter, is somewhat neglected. Marilyn and James love their kids, but they can’t connect to who they really are. They offer no message: Be who you are. We love you. The parents are distracted and anxious as they project and transfer their feelings onto Nathan and Lydia. The kids feel their parents’ vulnerabilities and want to protect their parents from the truths about their high school lives. There are plenty of subplots in the book as well as undercurrents of racism and sexism. Ng’s novel provides an excellent exploration of this heartbreaking family dynamic.  

The book’s title is Everything I Never Told You, but really it should be -  Everything We Never Told Each Other.