Book: Our Missing Hearts
Author: Celeste Ng
Publisher: Abacus
Price: ₹699
A dystopia hovers on the edge of belief — it is close enough to reality to set readers on edge but also far-fetched in the portentous events it foretells. But Celeste Ng’s novel features present-day America and its disturbing realities in a way that is far more unsettling than a dystopia can be. Noah Gardner, who prefers the moniker, Bird, is a 12-yearold Chinese American living with his father in Massachusetts. His mother is a fugitive, on the run because she wrote a subversive poem titled “All Our Missing Hearts”.
This America is living under the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act, which became law during an economically disastrous period known as the Crisis. Under PACT, the children of parents considered culturally or politically subversive are “replaced” in foster families. But after a sudden missive from his mother, Bird sets out in search of her and discovers more about the Crisis as well as the family separations, protests and increasing authoritarianism that followed. In the process, he is forced to grow up and take a stand as a member of a community. Given Ng’s often critical take on China’s policies, it is impossible not to draw parallels with Uighur children who are held in State ‘orphanages’ away from their parents.
The narrative tone is strikingly calm — serene even. This makes the sudden episodes of casual violence even more shocking. For instance, Bird observes a man punch a Chinese woman, knock her to the ground, and then kick her repeatedly. There is no reason for the assault except for her Otherness. But there are also the peaceful, “aesthetic” protests, showing that, in the long run, art can be more far-reaching and cost-effective than mass rallies. The deeply moving climax deals with the power of words, of stories, and with the persistence of memory.
If there is one quibble with the book, it is this: once Ng leaves Bird’s narration behind and moves on to his mother’s more adult voice, Our Missing Hearts begins to falter and becomes didactic.
