Everything I Never Told You

A haunting debut novel about a mixed-race family living in 1970s Ohio and the tragedy that will either be their undoing or their salvation Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet ... So begins the story in this exquisite debut novel about a Chinese American family living in a small town in 1970s Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue--in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James' case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. 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 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.

About the Author :
Celeste Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a family of scientists. She attended Harvard and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan), where she won the Hopwood Award. Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere, and she is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and son. Original bio sent from Cassandra: Cassandra Campbell began doing voice overs as the voice for Calvin Klein's Italian commercials. This was followed by commercial and documentary recording in both English and Italian. She has recorded many audiobooks and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie(R) Award nomination. As an actress and director, she has worked at the Public, the Mint, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stagewest, Theatreworks, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Millmountain Theatre, the National Shakespeare Company, and the New York Fringe Festival.

Review :
'Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet.' With an opening like this, rather unexpectedly delivered in Cassandra Campbell's sweet tone, the listener is easily drawn in...Campbell guides listeners carefully as she explores the complexities of families and society in general...Campbell's pacing is steady and calm, and her shifts between the past and present are clear. -- "AudioFile" A brilliantly written, surprisingly uplifting exploration of striving in the face of alienation and of the secrets we keep from others. -- "Parade" A deep, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling with its place in history and a young woman hoping to be the fulfillment of that struggle. This is, in the end, a novel about the burden of being the first of your kind--a burden you do not always survive. -- "New York Times Book Review" A literary mystery crafted out of shimmering prose and precise, painful observation about racial barriers, the burden of familial expectations, and the basic human thirst for belonging. -- "Huffington Post" A mesmerizing narrative that shrinks enormous issues of race, prejudice, identity, and gender into the miniaturist dynamics of a single family. -- "Library Journal (starred review)" A suspenseful and emotionally complex literary mystery novel...compellingly tense and moving. -- "Dan Chaon, New York Times bestselling author" Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family. -- "Entertainment Weekly" Captures the tension between cultures and generations with the deft touch of a seasoned writer. -- "Booklist (starred review)" Celeste Ng leavens the bridge between the disappearance of a young girl, and the personal histories that precede it, with the larger canvas issues of race and gender, without straying from the riveting emotional territory that make up the cornerstones of family: what is given, what is withheld, and what can never be known. Lydia Lee is every parent's dream, fear, and devastation, wholly loved, just as completely lost. It is impossible to resist grieving alongside each one of these bereft, deeply realized characters, for we live their lives, and their story becomes ours from the first paragraph of this marvelous book. -- "Ru Freeman, author of On Sal Mal Lane" I couldn't stop reading Everything I Never Told You...The writing is so smooth and keenly observed. The portrait of each member of the Lee family, the exploration of their mixed-race issues, and the search for the killer of their sister and daughter, Lydia, pulled at my heartstrings to the very end. -- "Uwem Akpan, author of Say You're One of Them" Ng tells a story weighted by death and grief that is vital in all the essential ways; these characters betray and love blindly and are needy and accuse and forgive. They are achingly human, and Ng's writing about them is tender and merciless all at once. At the same time, her story is also about what it means to live in two worlds at the same time, to be Asian and American, an insider and an outsider, and Ng writes about all this and more with terrific nuance. -- "Jesmyn Ward, National Book Award-winning author" Ng uses [Lydia's] death to crack open the unexamined undercurrents in the parents' marriage and the town's inability to accept it. Her prose is measured and eerily perfect, a tone that Campbell expertly matches with her narration. It's the sort of audiobook that occasionally makes you stop in your tracks while a sentence or moment sinks in. -- "Salon.com (audio review)" Ng's emotionally complex debut novel sucks you in like a strong current and holds you fast until its final secrets surface. -- "Kirkus Reviews" This emotionally involving debut novel explores themes of belonging...Ng's prose is precise and sensitive, her characters richly drawn. -- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" This ghostly debut novel calls to mind The Lovely Bones. -- "Marie Claire"