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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

The Great Unsaid: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

24/2/2015

8 Comments

 
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Three days after her sixteenth birthday, Lydia Lee is dead. As with the Mormon family in A Song for Issy Bradley, the different ways in which her parents and siblings, older brother Nath and younger sister Hannah, react to the loss brings further hurt to them all. The favourite child of both parents, it seems that Lydia has held them together; her absence reveals and widens the cracks in the family system.

The parents met at Harvard: James a postgraduate student delivering his first ever lecture on that great American archetype, the cowboy; Marilyn an undergraduate determined to make it in the male-dominated world of medicine. Pregnancy and marriage puts paid to her ambitions as they move to small-town Ohio where James has been offered a teaching post. Chillingly, their marriage would be illegal in some States: James is the only son of Chinese immigrants and, in 1958, interracial relationships are taboo.

While the 1977 newspaper reports of her death emphasise her loneliness as “an Oriental”, or identity confusion as a child of dual heritage in a predominately white town, it is not race, but racism, and parental pressure, that have made Lydia’s teenage years so hard. The only blue-eyed child of the three, and therefore the most like Marilyn in appearance, Lydia has willingly taken on the burden of fulfilling her parents’ dreams. Like Rebecca in Autobiography of Us, Marilyn’s adolescent rejection of her own mother’s limited horizons comes back to haunt her as she resigns herself to the traditional role of mother and homemaker. As in How to Be a Good Wife, this is underlined in the narrative by quotations from a book of wifely advice, in this case the Betty Crocker cookbook (which I was surprised to find is still available, although perhaps with its aphorisms toned down). Finally letting go of her own ambitions with her third pregnancy, Marilyn is determined that Lydia will become a doctor in her stead.

Growing up ashamed of his cultural heritage and stung by instances of casual racism, James has no significant relationships outside the family or the formalities of work. Still uncomfortable in his own skin, he is unable to see that his own desire for Lydia to be popular is as oppressive as Marilyn’s emphasis on the academic. Meanwhile, unable to tolerate seeing his younger self reflected in Nath, his hyper criticism of the boy, contrasting with his indulgence of Lydia, weakens the sibling support structure.

With the point of view moving back and forth between the different family members, the narrative arcs are skilfully intertwined so that disaster seems inevitable. Lydia has become locked into the false self: her parents’ creation, not just biologically, but psychically, a self that cannot survive her adolescent need to separate. Time and again, we see how the various family members misunderstand each other’s desires and motivations; assumptions that are never given voice cannot be tested against reality. Different readers might have different ideas about what constitutes “the great unsaid” in this novel but, for me, the saddest part is that the parents have never explored their understandings of cultural difference:

When they had married, he and Marilyn had agreed to forget about the past. They would start a new life together, the two of them, with no looking back. (p126)

In the blur of her fury, Marilyn doesn’t think twice about what she’s said. To James, though, the word rifles from his wife’s mouth and lodges deep in his chest. From those two syllables – kowtow – explode bent-backed coolies in cone hats, pigtailed Chinamen with sandwiched palms. Squinty and servile. Bowing and belittled. He has long suspected that everyone sees him this way … But he had not thought that everyone included Marilyn. (p116)

Everything I Never Told You is the third novel I read last year addressing coming-of-age in the 1970s. I can highly recommend this beautifully written and poignant tale of our struggles with difference and the harm that parents can unwittingly do to their children when their own issues have not been addressed. Thanks to Blackfriars for my review copy. I cared so much about these characters that, although it would have ruined the story, I kept hoping a fictional therapist would come to their rescue.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Gargi link
25/2/2015 12:03:28 am

I have read much about this book online. The writing is enticing – yet another (or should I say Ann-other!) addition to my TBR pile!

Reply
Annecdotist
26/2/2015 08:53:43 am

Yes, I'm a bit late in adding my review to all the others out there. I certainly haven't come across a negative review of this novel. I'd definitely recommend it as annother for your TBR pile.

Reply
Charli Mills link
25/2/2015 02:47:13 pm

I can understand the parents' initial attraction as each is trying to carve out a niche outside of traditional roles of race and gender, yet tragic that they could not build something together that would form a platform for their children. It sounds like the author managed the multiple points of view in moving the story along. Interesting that there are several coming of age stories set in the 1970s recently. Does it reflect the age of the authors or has that era become removed enough to be observed as history?

Reply
Annecdotist
26/2/2015 09:01:00 am

It's an interesting area, how you manage similarities and differences within a relationship. I can probably identify with the parents' blind spot having been in "a mixed race" relationship where our similarities of outlook and interests might have been part of what stopped at looking properly at our differences.
And yeah, it seems like the 70s are history – I'm particularly intrigued at younger writers exploring that period.

Reply
geoff link
25/2/2015 03:19:45 pm

Ah a rival 1970s coming of age tale!. Interesting that, about 18 months ago when I sent DFST to about six agents one of the two who responded said they already had 2 such books in the pipeline so wouldn't be interested (I read in an implication; that but for that they would jump at it, but that was simply protecting a sliver of ego). It does sound a good book though.

Reply
Annecdotist
26/2/2015 09:15:24 am

Well, I think they should have taken on your novel and set themselves up as experts in the sub genre.
It's interesting, if not a bit crazy, how these things go in and out of fashion. There’s a sad story of someone I met at the York writers conference who said she’d had her novel turned down for the same reasons (and the agent was present in the session to confirm it). Then by sheer happenstance I happened to see an obituary for her about a year later, so her novel never got to see the light of day.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
28/2/2015 04:05:45 am

Even before I got to your final paragraph and recommendation I was thinking that this could be a read for me. Children growing up, family relationships, especially dysfunctional ones, are all of interest to me. Having read Geoff's book (and in response to his comment above) I didn't think his and this one would fit quite the same genre. While his is certainly filled with dysfunction and youth, I consider it more lighthearted (I hope I'm not wrong there, Geoff) than this one appears to be from your description.
I have just read your response to Geoff above about the writer whose book was never published. That's a sad tale which must often be true. Fortunately it won't be your story! :)

Reply
Annecdotist
28/2/2015 06:05:24 am

Thanks, Norah, and I agree, not much connection with Geoff's novel apart from the time period. I'm reading another right now Our Endless Numbered Days that also starts in 1976, so there is clearly a thing going. And, yeah, I certainly don't want to die before my novel gets published!!!
I'd recommend Everything I Never Told You – although it addresses deep themes it's not a challenging read at all. I hope you get the chance to give it a go.

Reply



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