Unsung Voices

Join us at Downtown Huntsville Library this year as we explore writers from the 20th through the 21st century that you may or may not be very familiar with. This month we are reading Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

Celeste Ng is an American writer and novelist. Her short stories have been published in a variety of literary journals. Ng's first novel, Everything I Never Told You,  released in 2014, won the Amazon Book of the Year award as well as praise from critics. Ng's short story "Girls at Play" won a Pushcart Prize in 2012 and a 2015 Alex Award. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, was published in 2017. The TV miniseries based on the book premiered in 2020. Ng received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. Her most recent novel, Our Missing Hearts, was released in 2022.

When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest of the family-Hannah-who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened. A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

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