Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

I enjoyed Celeste Ng’s second novel Little Fires Everywhere. The drama blasts open when Izzy Richardson, the youngest of Elena and Duncan Richardson’s four children, sets their family home on fire. The novel then retraces the events preceding the fire. Ng digs into the inner lives of Elena Richardson and her children to show us that families that look “put together” from the outside can actually be unhealthy and dysfunctional, while families that look atypical can be healthy and functional. Such irony would not please Elena Richardson who marries her college sweetheart, has four children and, in a concession to motherhood, writes fluffy personal interest stories rather than investigative journalism pieces for the local paper. Like her mother and grandmother, Elena was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a planned and rule-bound community founded by the Shakers at the turn of the century. She remains in Shaker Heights and relishes in the knowledge and security that derive from her lineage. 

When she rents her rental property to a peripatetic artist named Mia and Mia's high school daughter, Pearl, the Richardson family is permanently altered. Pearl becomes enthralled with three of Elena’s teenagers while the fourth child, Izzy, spends her time helping Mia with her art projects. Izzy feels understood and appreciated when she is with Mia, and Pearl is enamored of the bustling Richardson home.

When Mia helps a destitute co-worker who drops her infant off at the fire station, it is a catalytic moment in the narrative. Elena Richardson’s best friend, Linda McCullough, has adopted the young infant. A custody battle ensues, with Mia helping the young co-worker get her baby back while Elena and her husband fight for the adoptive parents. “So it was her tenant, her quiet little eager-to-please tenant, who had started all of this. Who had, for reasons still unclear, decided to upend the poor McCulloughs’ lives.” Elena Richardson feels that Mia has betrayed her. She turns to her investigative journalism skills to track down Mia’s past. Like a detective, she visits Mia’s estranged parents and learns about events that led to Pearl’s birth and Pearl's unnamed father. (I like where Celeste Ng was taking her readers, but I needed more signals to convince me that Elena would pursue Mia’s past with such intensity.) 

There are a couple of clues that Elena is jealous of Izzy’s relationship with Mia. Izzy’s birth had been difficult and frightening. Elena says, “She had learned with Izzy’s birth how your life could trundle along on its safe little track and then, with no warning, skid spectacularly off course. Every time Mrs. Richardson looked at Izzy, that feeling of things spiraling out of control coiled around her again, like a muscle she didn’t know how to unclench.” Elena’s fear reveals itself as anger when a situation involves Izzy. Does she still resent Izzy for wreaking havoc on Elena’s orderly world when Izzy was a child? The other kids model Elena’s behavior and make Izzy feel like an outcast. 

Like a perfect storm, events culminate and coalesce and lead to Elena’s eviction of Mia and Pearl. For Izzy, these events are the fuse that lights the fire.  

I admire Ng’s effort to explore the emotions of all her characters. She understands the complicated feelings, inner turmoil, and unique needs of her characters. Little Fires Everywhere is an excellent examination of intricate family dynamics.