Everything I Never Told You floored me emotionally, reminding me that fiction that resonates with you can grow your empathy while providing support. Little Fires Everywhere is a good book but has made less of an impression on me. Like her first book, this story starts with an in media Res, but it feels less intriguing than previously. It didn’t really feel like it was necessary, the story being enough to draw me in.
There are a few themes across this book, with motherhood being the main one, with issues of race and class, and how those intersect carry the narrative. The very 1990s WASPy world of Elena and her teenage brood collide with the Mia and her daughter and this challenges the relationships between the mothers and their children. Mia has a very close relationship with her daughter, which at first appears potentially unhealthy emotionally dependent but is really one of love and deep trust as Mia finally opens herself to her daughter, Pearl.
Pearl’s own fascination at first with the rich world of the Richardsons and Mia’s wariness around this is one I can empathize with. My own daughters move in social circles I would not have access to and encouraging them to participate but keep the values they and I hold can sometimes be worrying for me.
The Richardson matriarch, Elena, while living a well-off life, is aloof from her children, well-versed in coming home to a house where her children are out or in corners of the house. A life of material abundance doesn’t always translate to one of emotional plentitude.
Running alongside this is the charged legal case for custody of Mirabelle, abandoned by her overwhelmed immigrant mother , Bebe, and the McCulloughs who are looking after her. The case shows how the very white sighted Shaker’s views race and class while ignoring their more cosmopolitan community. As Mia and Elena’s relationship develops, and becomes conflictual, the case offers a parallel.
