Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

A caveat for members of Val de Saire Book Club for whom this title is the November read: this review contains Spoilers

I had a love hate relationship with this novel as I read it. I started to read it rather grudgingly; it is a book club choice and my respect for the code of conduct in a book group means that I will read it.  Even though the person who chose it has left the group! 

It is described as a tale of morals and motherhood and there is an awful lot of Anne Tyler about it.  I have read most of Tyler's novels and I could feel that I am somewhat played out on small town American domesticity and family sagas.  Tyler has written about different families but I sometimes feel, and especially with so many books out there that I want to read, that once you have read one you have read them all. 

Set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, one of America’s first planned communities, order and harmony are prized. The author spent some of her formative years growing up there and this helps to reinforce a sense of time and place -the 1990s. 

Someone has burned down the Richardson's house, the youngest of four children is blamed. We wait until the end to find out who the culprit is and what motivated the act of arson. 

Because the novel is more about babies and the extremes of busybodiness and meddling which can be an overarching part of the lives of some self-righteous people. Namely Mrs Richardson. There is the matter of an abandoned baby, an adoption which might not have taken place as it should have done,  through the proper channels. There is a custody battle which goes to court. During this process I found some of the writing on motherhood overly sentimental and cloying. I allowed myself to be irritated by this and then I questioned my ability to feel compassion. (I had to question myself on this when I read Eleanor Oliphant)  Was I being unfeeling? I think it is within the power of writers to connect with the feelings of their readers and extract the reactions that they themselves recognise and feel to be appropriate. Or to fail in that and leave the reader cold. Certainly though as Ng writes about the custody issue she left me feeling ambivalent as to for whose plea the judge should find favour, the birth mother or the adoptive parents. 

There are many aspects to the narrative: race, class, privilege, teenage sex, abortion, surrogacy. It's all in there. It is a rich list of ingredients but I did not ultimately find it a tasty dish.