In essence, his mother’s poetry becomes a weapon, a tool of resistance - and also a way back to her. Many members of the resistance use bright red hearts in their campaigns (such as a truck filled with heart-marked pingpong balls dumped in a river) in a nod to Margaret’s best-known poetry collection, “All Our Missing Hearts.” There, a librarian accidentally reveals that her collection is also a way of transmitting messages to underground fighters. The clues begin to constitute a treasure map, leading to the local library he’s been discouraged from visiting. He remembers his own mother’s stories, and, after receiving a strange missive from her - a page covered with drawings of cats - he also recalls a book she once read to him. Bird’s main consolation is a friend named Sadie, whose memories of her storytelling parents fill Bird with longing. Given a low-level archives job, he must move with his son to a tiny apartment where they face each day with grim resignation. The Preserving of American Cultures and Traditions Act encourages bigotry against many groups, particularly Asian Americans, partly in response to China’s increasingly powerful role in the global economy after “The Crisis.”Īfter Margaret’s disappearance, Bird’s father loses his prestigious position as a linguistics professor. But Ng - whose spectacular 2014 debut, “ Everything I Never Told You,” was followed by 2017’s equally trenchant “Little Fires Everywhere” - roots her hero’s journey in books and libraries.īird’s mother, Margaret Miu, a daughter of Chinese immigrants, is a poet of some stature whose career ended when the United States took a turn into hard xenophobia and passed PACT.

Yes, Noah Gardner, whose mother called him Bird, will leave home, endure trials and perform feats, just like any classical hero. The simplest way to put it without spoiling anything is to say that at the core of Ng’s narrative - a 12-year-old boy’s epic quest to find his missing mother - is the all-important question of how we communicate. When you finish Celeste Ng’s stunning new dystopian novel, “ Our Missing Hearts,” you’ll understand why this sculpture comes to mind. However, instead of leaves, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s tree has tiny speakers drooping from each branch that play 360 different spoken languages, creating a deliberate Tower of Babel, a cacophony of voices that immerses visitors in our shared human need for expression. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.Īt the entrance to the Planet Word museum in Washington, D.C., stands a remarkable sculpture designed to resemble a weeping willow.

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