Thoughts On: Little Fires Everywhere
In terms of storytelling, I have always been drawn to drama. Something about the range of petty to perilous squabbles between fictional characters just hits the right spot. This drama is found in spades in Celeste Ng’s second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, but not without giving readers a wealth of nuance and context to go with each character’s actions. The story follows two families, The Richardsons and the Warrens, as they become more and more intertwined over the course of the story.
The novel opens in Shaker Heights Ohio, the author’s hometown serving as a real backdrop to the fictional story. This gives the setting not only an added element of realism but extends the same level of nuance to the town itself that is eventually attributed to its residents. The town is described as pristine and efficient, a physical testament to the American Dream that seldom ever changes or evolves. For Elena Richardson, the affluent matriarch of the Richardson family and mother to four bright teenagers, the town is perfection incarnate. Her entire life has been constructed around the idea of staying in this comfortable bubble, and when she ends up renting an apartment to Mia Warren, a nomadic artist and single mother to her daughter Pearl, those ideas start to shift.
Once Pearl, brilliant in her own right despite never staying in one place for too long nor having any close friends, befriends the Richardsons’ children, the author gives us two distinct views of Shaker Heights. There is the town from the viewpoint of the wealthy, exemplified by the eldest of the Richardson teens, Lexie, who routinely ignores personal space and boundaries for the sake of her own amusement. She lives in a world people seldom say no to her and she excels in all societal situations, so she has never had to face consequences. Compare this to Pearl, who spends most of her time outside hanging with the Richardson’s in stoic contemplation about her actions and the world around her, unable to grasp the confidence that Lexi has been handed on a silver platter. The story is constantly switching perspectives on the reader, allowing us to follow every character individually at some point and learning how they function.
The novel excels at creating these subtle differences between its main cast, allowing the teens in the story to grow close without letting readers forget about the classism that is an undeniable part of the town. In this way we get to see nuance of characters’ actions and decisions — not everything that someone may readily attribute to malice is malicious — which is vital for allowing the characters to appear human. Everyone in Shaker Heights has their own agenda, and as motives are revealed, characters’ more selfish tendencies tend to rear their heads. Decisions informed by a character’s sense of self-righteousness are no less appalling in the story, but you get to understand what drives them to make those choices. The beauty of how drama is portrayed in Little Fires Everywhere is that it is almost entirely dependent on its casts’ clash of ideals. In place of shouting matches and finger pointing lies cold shoulders and pettiness, since in Shaker Heights confrontation is rare and unsightly.
People’s actions and sense of self-preservation are often formed by their environment, a concept that Little Fires Everywhere explores through a variable lens. There are no heroes or villains to rally behind, just people living their lives to the best of their ability, which becomes harder or easier depending on who the story shifts to. It represents the trouble in trying to deal with oppressive classism without resorting to putting its characters into ludicrously negative situations to make a point. Wealth is not an inherently evil force in the story, but in creating a society that relishes in wealth, specifically Shaker Heights, you open the door for entitlement and a lack of compassion to those without wealth. It is a personal story about how the messed-up culture of a town can shape the lives of everyone in it, even when they believe they are so in their own little gilded bubble.
