Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng opens with a startling revelation.
Lydia is dead but they don’t know this yet.
From here begins a novel that journeys into the life of a Chinese-American family living in small-town Ohio in the 1970s. The entire story is an answer to a single question: Why did whatever happened to Lydia happen?
The narration pieces together Lydia, a teenager, and her life through the perceptions and experiences of the other characters: James Lee, Lydia’s father, who is of Chinese descent and who, all his life has been friendless and cast out because of his race, someone who is desperately trying to blend in all the time. Marilyn Lee – Lydia’s mother, an American, who as a young girl aspired to study science, a discipline dominated by men, and dreamed of eventually becoming a doctor. Her dreams, however, never materialize as her life takes an entirely different course: she falls in love with James, marries him and has three children with him. She becomes a homemaker, growing bitter about not being able to achieve her dream, and eventually turns to her daughter Lydia to realise her unfulfilled aspirations. There’s Nath, the eldest one, James and Marilyn’s son. He is good at academics, ambitious and yet, never receives the attention of his parents which he desperately yearns for. Nath carries several scars inflicted upon him by his father, who is perpetually worried that his son will meet the same fate as him. The boy is always in the sidelines, watching all the attention being showered on Lydia, and he seethes with jealousy. The complex relationship that exists between Nath and Lydia unravels gradually through the story and the author traces this arc deftly. Hannah, the last of the siblings, is rendered invisible. She is the child who hides in the nooks and corners, whose room is in the attic; she is the one who sits hidden underneath tables as fights and conversations rage above. She is hardly noticed by her parents and siblings and longs for their attention and affection, while they handle her carelessly with utter disregard. Yet, she is the most observant of the lot, the one silently watching, the one who knows everything that’s going on. Lastly, there’s Lydia herself, in whose very nature there is the tendency to say yes, all the time, to keep her parents happy. She is lonely, confused, powerless and directionless, putting up a façade she totally hates.
“Everything I never told you” isn’t an easy read. It is inevitable that one gets emotionally invested in the story. There is a sadness that pervades the entire narrative; the sorrow descends heavily, and ironically, this grim mood that dominates the story doesn’t let you set the book aside; rather, it just pushes you to keep reading, often through misty eyes.
Celeste Ng doesn’t merely tell a story. She shows us a family living out their lives with all the psychological scars they bear, struggling to have meaningful, uplifting and understanding conversations. In it, is the story of a couple that wonders at one point if they have made a mistake.
The story startles and saddens repeatedly and this is because of Ng introducing several small episodes that expose the psychological wounds, raw and hurting and real, that three innocent children carry through their childhood.
What happens to children who bear the burden of parental expectations; of parents who come with their own emotional baggage from their childhood?
In a story where emotions and thoughts are woven into a complex, tangled web, and in which a sadness unmistakably lingers, the death of a teenaged daughter who should have lived a life full of possibilities and promise, teaches her family a lesson. And the lesson, without a doubt, is for the reader too.