Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

On Thursday 15th November Jane, Lorraine, Caroline and new member Michelle Hargreaves met at Jan's house in St Vaast La Hougue to discuss Little Fires Everywhere. This title, published in 2017, is the author's second novel and takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio where Ng grew up. She described writing about her hometown as "a little bit like writing about a relative. You see all of the great things about them, you love them dearly, and yet you also know all of their quirks and their foibles." It is about two families living in 1990s Shaker Heights who are brought together through their children.

Everyone had enjoyed reading this novel and there was a good discussion about various aspects. Caroline for example felt that the teenagers were drawn characters. We talked about the moral issues raised in the book, particularly the trial between the McCulloughs and Bebe Chow and the dilemma as to who should have legal custody of May Ling Chow.

Jan had written a short review as follows:
I had a love hate relationship with this novel as I read it.  It is described as a tale of morals and motherhood and there is an awful lot of Anne Tyler about it. I have read most of Tyler's novels and I could feel that I am somewhat played out on small town American domesticity and family sagas. Tyler has written about different families but I sometimes feel, and especially with so many books out there that I want to read, that once you have read one you have read them all.   I am sure there are many Anne Tyler fans who would be happy to debate that!

Someone has burned down the Richardson's house, the youngest of four children is blamed. We wait until the end to find out who the culprit is and what motivated the act of arson.

The novel is more about babies and the extremes of busybodiness and meddling which can be an overarching part of the lives of some self-righteous people. Namely Mrs Richardson. There is the matter of an abandoned baby, an adoption which might not have taken place as it should have done, through the proper channels. There is a custody battle which goes to court. During this process I found some of the writing on motherhood overly sentimental and cloying. I allowed myself to be irritated by this and then I questioned my ability to feel compassion.  Was I being unfeeling? I think it is within the power of writers to connect with the feelings of their readers and extract the reactions that they themselves recognise and feel to be appropriate. Or to fail in that and leave the reader cold. Certainly though as Ng writes about the custody issue she left me feeling ambivalent as to for whose plea the judge should find favour, the birth mother or the adoptive parents.

There are many aspects to the narrative: race, class, privilege, teenage sex, abortion, surrogacy. It's all in there. It is a rich list of ingredients but I did not ultimately find it a tasty dish.

Jane rated the book 5 stars, Caroline and Lorraine gave 4 and Jan gave 3.5 stars.

We meet next time at Jane's for lunch on Thursday December 13th at 12.30 p.m. to discuss The Bone People by Keri Hulme.