When 12-year-old Bird receives a surprise letter, he knows it’s from his mother even without opening it. He hasn’t been called Bird since his mum left.
It was the name she said he gave himself when he was tiny, the only name he would answer to because “it felt like him”. Now Bird must answer to Noah, his birth name, and forget about his mother.
He feels as if he’s wearing “a rubbery Halloween mask”, a potent metaphor for the dystopian world author Celeste Ng has created in her terrifying and enthralling new novel.
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Celeste Ng has created a dystopian world in her terrifying and enthralling new novel. BUY IT HERE
(Credit: (Image: Booktopia))
There is no return address on the letter but it has to be from her and Bird knows he must hide it, even from his father. The letter has been inspected “for your safety”, notes the sticker from PACT – the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act.
This law was set in place a decade earlier in response to “The Crisis”, a period of violent protests. One of its central tenets is to protect children from “environments espousing harmful views” and most dangerous are those promoting Asian culture.
Bird’s mother, a Chinese American poet, disappeared. Since that day Bird and his white Harvard academic father have tried to lie low, but with Bird’s recognisably Asian features they are walking a tightrope.
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“Everything in the novel has a real-life precedent,” Celeste says.
(Credit: (Image: Instagram))“Everything in the novel has a real-life precedent; nothing is wholly made up,” Celeste says. “Libraries being forced to remove books, schools demanding displays of ‘patriotism’, children taken away as leverage – all of these were based on things that have happened, and now they’re happening again. It’s less of a dystopia and more America as it might be in a few years’ time.”
It’s a world the author grew up in and one she says still prevails. “I wish I could say this is no longer the case, but I think every Asian American knows what it’s like to be deemed ‘not American enough’. No matter how long you or your family have been in America, you’re often still seen as a foreigner because of your face.”
Bird feels compelled to find his mother and in doing so he is also searching for the heart and soul of his country and humanity itself. “I never come to fiction with a lesson to impart – but I do hope the book opens up questions,” says Celeste.
“What would you do if you saw wrongs happening to other people? Would you stand up for what was right, even at personal cost? Can the actions of one person make a difference?” Yes … Please, yes!
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“I think every Asian American knows what it’s like to be deemed ‘not American enough’.”
(Credit: (Image: Instagram))About the Author
US novelist Celeste Ng, 42, was raised in Pennsylvania and Ohio and as a child was encouraged to read. “
Stories were always how I made sense of the world,” she tells The Weekly.
“I was a shy kid, so I would stay to the side and just observe everything. That helped me a lot [later] as a writer: I learned to listen and watch and figure people out.”
Our Missing Hearts is her third novel. Her second – Little Fires Everywhere – was a New York Times bestseller and adapted into a TV series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington.
You can read this story and many others in the November issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly – subscribe here.
