By Mysia Haight, Audible Editor

LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE CAPTURES THE ACHING COMPLEXITIES OF MOTHERHOOD

I became a first-time mom at 40—to a nine-year-old girl. My daughter, Lucero, is adopted, and though she occasionally sounds like me (it’s thrilling to hear my words coming out of her mouth), we don’t look anything alike. In terms of race and ethnicity, Lucero is Black and Hispanic, and I’m white and roughly three-quarters English and a quarter Italian. Over the years, I’ve rarely encountered overt criticism for choosing transracial adoption, partly because Lucero was adopted as an older child who had spent nearly three years in foster care with five different families before I met her. Would I have been judged differently if I had adopted my daughter as an infant? Would I have adopted my daughter if I knew her biological mother had given her up in a moment of desperation and then regretted it and just as desperately wanted her back?

The theme of transracial adoption is what drew me to Little Fires Everywhere. Celeste Ng’s beautiful writing, richly drawn characters, and sensitive exploration of the challenges and complexities of motherhood are what kept me immersed in the story and left me thinking long after I had finished reading. Yes, I got caught up in the controversial battle for custody of a Chinese American baby (Mirabelle/May Ling) between the well-off white couple about to finalize her adoption and the birth mother who, for heart-wrenching reasons, was unable to care for her. But I became deeply invested in the novel’s two main characters, Elena Richardson and Mia Warren, and each woman’s fraught relationship with her own 15-year-old daughter.

Opening in 1997, Little Fires Everywhere is set in Shaker Heights, Ohio—a suburban community carefully planned and maintained with the goals of integration and harmonious living. It’s an actual place, and the setting is integral to the story. Elena is a third-generation Shaker Heights resident and believes in rules and order as the keys to keeping the peace. She works as a reporter for the local paper, but her priority is being a mother to her four now teenage children—Lexie, Trip, Moody, and Izzy. Mia is a gifted photographer and, despite her nomadic lifestyle, a devoted mother as well. Her daughter, Pearl, has gotten used to not only moving from place to place but also to her mother’s knack for evading questions, especially about the identity of her father. When they arrive in Shaker Heights, however, Mia promises Pearl that the two of them will "stay put." They rent a house owned by the Richardsons, and before long, the lives of Elena and Mia—and the fates of their children—become intertwined in unexpected ways.

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