Our Missing Hearts

By Celeste Ng

Bird and Margaret’s world isn’t exactly our world, but it isn’t not ours, either. Most of the events and occurrences in this book do not have direct analogues, but I drew inspiration from many real-life events, both past and current—and in some cases, things I’d imagined had become realities by the time the novel was done.

~From the Author’s Note

Haunting. That’s the word I kept searching for as I moved deeper into this story about a young boy’s quest to find his mother. I was surprised to see Celeste Ng move into dystopia as a genre. Of her other books, I had only read Little Fires Everywhere, very contempory and very much about modern culture. This story is haunting, and writing it had to take courage. The story is Ng’s imagining of an America existing in a twisted sort of fascism based on the double-speak we see coming from politicians and media pundits today. The most haunting thing about it was how Ng shows us that what we think as events relegated to a dystopian future, are in fact already happening and have happened in many parts of our country today. (No spoiler alerts!) Her dystopian world is close enough to home to raise the hair on the back of my neck.

But it’s also beautiful story. Ng somehow manages to create, within her dystopian world, a story about connection. And the way stories connect us. And how critical it is for us as individuals, and as separate but intermingled cultures to tell stories and to keep stories alive.

There is a lot of room for allegory and healing symbolism here. Most poignant for me is the yearning for “Mother” both as archetype and felt experience. Do mothers and children communicate energetically when they are separate in time or space? Or even through the curtain of death? As the protagonist, Bird, searches for his mother, we see and feel the fear, longing, tenderness, and love between a mother and child. And I am reminded that yes, although it feels to me as though this love must originate from the mother, I know from experience, it also originates from the child. Sometimes I am astounded at the depth of my children’s love for me. These are the messages echoing from Ng’s story.

She shows us how that story connects us. She leds readers down a mysterious road anticipating the violence expected in our culture. And then she takes a right turn to show us how love and story, not violence, are what redeems us and keeps us connected. No happy endings here, but definitely satisfying. Oh so satisfying.