Celeste Ng explores depth of societal issues in 'Our Missing Hearts'

Celeste Ng’s latest novel, “Our Missing Hearts,” explores what happens when issues like separating families and banning books hit home.

“A lot of times we don't recognize that other people's problems are actual societal problems until it's staring us straight in the face,” Ng said. “I wanted to encourage readers to think about that question and think, ‘Well, is that something that's happening to someone else? Or is that our problem? Is this a problem that I can help with at all?’”

“Our Missing Hearts,” centers on Bird, a 12-year-old boy separated from his mother and growing up in a culture that requires him to disavow her. Government laws snuff out the mere suggestion of dissent, especially from people of Asian origin, including his mother, a Chinese American poet.

Throughout the novel, Ng illuminates current racial issues, such as treating people differently due to race and, in more serious instances, violently attacking people. While the world these characters live in is fictionalized, the problems are familiar.

“When we bring these problems down to the personal level … I think it's a lot harder to look away,” Ng said. “Building that kind of empathy, I think, gives us the motivation to tackle some of these huge issues.”

Art and its hopefulness are also woven throughout as Ng explores both creative expression as protest and the comfort found in beloved fairy tales. Physically apart from his mother, for instance, Bird recalls the stories she’d tell him as a boy.

While art is a not a “silver bullet for a lot of the big problems we face,” it can offer a “window towards the future,” Ng said.

When asked about how art can change minds, Ng said one big thing is how art affects people emotionally.

“It can kind of sidestep the rational part of our brain that might ignore statistics and might ignore an op-ed or an article about what's going on,” Ng said. “But when you see a piece of art and it actually touches you, a lot of times it gives you a feeling that you have to sit and process. And a lot of times that's the beginning of change.”

“Our Missing Hearts” follows Ng’s novel “Little Fires Everywhere,” set in her hometown of Shaker Heights and adapted for TV audiences as a Hulu series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. “Little Fires Everywhere” explores issues of race and class amplified by a custody battle over the adoption of a Chinese-American baby.

“Growing up in Shaker in particular, it was a really wonderful experience to have race be a topic that could be discussed. In so many places, it's not discussed at all. And the fact that I grew up in a community that at least was talking about these problems, I think made me more willing to tackle some of those problems in my work,” she said.

Ng said readers can expect her, in her future writings, to continue probing racial issues, what gets passed down generationally (or not) and questions of identity and how that affects art in people’s lives.

“Whether it's how people view me versus how I know myself or larger societal issues that I feel like touch my own life because I am a person of color, those are the things that I end up feeling like I want to figure out. And, for me, the way I figure those things out is I work with them on the page,” she said.

Ng will speak about “Our Missing Hearts” in person at the Cuyahoga County Public Library’s Parma-Snow branch on October 27 at 7 p.m. The ticketed event includes a copy of the book and masks are required.

Copyright 2022 WKSU. To see more, visit WKSU.