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Prairie Fires
When Reese Witherspoon first read Celeste Ng's 2017 novel 'Little Fires Everywhere,' she was struck by the very many complex themes around motherhood and womanhood, as well as race and class. Are you reading Everything I Never Told You or Little Fires Everywhere in your book club?Download the (free) reading group guides below for discussion. When Reese Witherspoon first read Celeste Ng’s 2017 novel “Little Fires Everywhere,” she was struck by the very many complex themes around motherhood and womanhood, as well as rac.
Mia becomes an enormous influence upon the already rebellious Izzy, primarily in the form of directing and channeling that energy. At one point, Mia tells Izzy about a time in Nebraska when she witnessed the devastating effects of a prairie fire which left everything scorched and turned every last inch of green black. In time, however, the green would not only return, but the entire prairie would become more fertile and new growth make the results of the fire impossible even to imagine. This image is certified as symbolic when Mia later explains how it is representative of the fact that sometimes change requires burning everything down and completely starting over from scratch. It’s meant metaphorically, of course, but, hey, Izzy plays by Izzy’s rules.
Names
Names becomes highly symbolic in the novel as insight into how the ideological philosophy of the rules of Shaker Heights infiltrate the consciousness of its citizens. Elena Richardson is the personification of the adherence to rules and order in the Heights and as a result is almost always addressed as Mrs. Richardson. Her rebellious daughter Isabelle Marie, on the other hand, has adopted a name typically associated with males: Izzy. Pearl was named by her single-mother Mia after Hester Prynne’s illegitimate child in The Scarlet Letter while the Chinese foundling a white Shaker Heights family want to adopt undergoes a particularly extreme form of Anglicized name change: May Ling Chow becomes Mirabelle McCullough.
Jerry Springer
More specifically, The Jerry Springer Show. The novel is set in the 1990’s when the collapse of certain censorship restrictions and the wholesale change of afternoon television programming from rerun-based to talk-show dense brought something into family living rooms never seen before: a daily parade of the world’s worst in humanity struggling to top the degradation aired the day before. The Richardson kids are addicted to Springer’s demonstration of uncontrolled humanity appearing under topics like “I’m Having Your Husband’s Baby!” in a way that transforms the show from mere spectacle into a symbol of the unplanned, uncontrolled, and disordered universe outside the boundaries of Shaker Heights.
Mia’s Photographs
Mia is a photographer, but not merely of the point and click variety. Her images are truly a work of art, requiring intricate hands-on multimedia presentations. What they present—especially those she leaves behind for each member of the Richardson family—are a particularly idiosyncratic form of metaphysical self-portraiture. Not self-portraits in the sense of a “selfie” but in the sense of being a psychological “selfie” in which a secret inner truth known to the subject is revealed in the image in a way that can be only be truly understood by the subject..and the photographer. The images are symbols of the reality hiding behind the façade of the individuals which are in turn symbolic of the façade of perfection hiding the flawed reality of Shaker Heights.
Shaker Heights
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The motto of the real-life town in which the story is set is “Most communities just happen; the best are planned.” The Heights was a carefully planned community of such fame it was featured in an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine in the 1960’s. It has managed to maintain much of its original features through strict implementation of rigidly constructed rules. The city becomes of how authority is disguised as order and how order is a mere illusion in the face of the chaos of reality.
Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere explores themes of mother-daughter bonds, appearance versus reality, and identity. The novel opens with a house fire spreading in the upscale, orderly, picture-perfect Richardson home in one of Shaker Heights’ finest neighborhoods. The only family member home, Mrs. Richardson, stands in her front lawn in her bathrobe as she watches the destruction of her immaculate home and life. Three of her four children get the word and gather around. Her youngest daughter, Izzy, the one that always had a knack for upsetting the natural order of things, is nowhere to be found.The novel then flashes back to the previous year when a single mother and her teenage daughter, Mia and Pearl, move into the Richardsons’ rental house in a neighborhood in Shaker Heights lined with duplexes. But they needn’t worry; from any outward appearance, the duplexes appear to be single family homes, so the tenants can avoid any stigma associated with renting half of a house.
For all of the ostensible order, comfort, traditions and picture-perfect normalcy of the Richardsons, Mia and Pearl Warren represent the opposite. They have lived a nomadic lifestyle, guided by mom Mia’s artistic pursuits. Their pattern has been to pack up their few belongings, travel to different communities, and land in a place where Mia feels she will be inspired to create her photography art. She takes part-time work wherever she can find it to make ends meet, and they make it work with repurposing, thrift stores, and living very economically.
These two worlds converge when Moody Richardson, the youngest Richardson son, who is Pearl’s age, develops a crush on his parents’ tenant’s daughter, and he starts inviting her over to their house. The Richardsons welcome their new friend, and Pearl is enamored of the family and their lifestyle. At the same time, Izzy connects with free-spirited Mia. A rule follower to a tee, Mrs. Richardson has a hard time understanding her rebel daughter Izzy. Izzy won’t abide by the rules if she feels an injustice has occurred, and she questions the accepted “rules” of her privileged community.
All of this groundwork is laid out artfully by Ng as she eases the reader into the central plot, themes, and deep characterizations. She immerses the reader into the daily lives of the Richardson and Warren families. We scratch beneath the surface of the facades and see the different perspectives of the characters. The novel lingers on the characters in a deeply engaging way, the way one relishes devouring every aspect of a new love.
It’s not until about halfway through the novel that the central conflict occurs. A couple that is close with the Richardson family finds themselves in a custody dispute. They adopted a Chinese baby girl who was abandoned at a fire station. The mother surfaces, the media gets a hold of the story, and the tranquil community of Shaker Heights becomes consumed with the very personal, heart-rending ordeal. Ng gets inside the head of all sides without taking a position. The reader feels for the young, desperate Chinese mother and the generous, loving adoptive parents.
Mia and Mrs. Richardson find themselves on opposite sides of this dispute, and the clash reveals aspects of Mrs. Richardson’s personality that run counter to her impeccable image. She digs deep into Mia’s background and finds out something shocking that ties into one of the major themes of the novel, the bond of mothers and daughters.
Little Fires Everywhere is a layered, immersive novel in which the characters are so well developed that the drama and conflicts that unfold flow seamlessly throughout the novel. This is Ng’s second novel, and I read her first, Everything I Never Told You. I just hope it’s not too long a wait until she graces the literary world with more of her work.
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