Book Review: Our Missing Hearts: A Novel by Celeste Ng

Dear Lit Loves,

Hi!  I am now trying to return to the normal events of my life such as my book club after spending the majority of 2023 losing my mother and helping to administer her estate.   

The book club I attend selected Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng.  Mrs. Ng is quite a popular author.  She attended college at Harvard and obtained her MFA from The University of Michigan.  Her previous books included the award-winning Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You if my memory serves me correctly.  

Interestingly, Mrs. Ng usually writes literary fiction and in this novel, Our Missing Hearts, she writes in the Dystopian genre which I personally do not read.  Actually, this is the first book I have read in that genre as my preferred genre is non-celebrity memoir.  Dystopian is writing about a fictional society that is under duress of some kind based on the definition I located via a dictionary in my home office.  Interestingly, in this book it revolves around the United States having gone through an economic downturn due to the policies and economics of another country, in this case China.  As a result, a senator brings forth a policy called PACT or Preserving American Cultures and Traditions. 

PACT causes targeting of a specific ethnicity in the country.  And if the authorities deem that you in any way are unpatriotic or protesting against PACT, individuals and families can have their children removed or "replaced" into other homes deemed more wholesomely patriotic.  Obviously, this leads to protests, discrimination, separation of children from their parents, and a particular group of people in the United States being looked upon unfavorably.  And some individuals lose their lives due to protesting PACT.

Essentially, you have a mom (Margaret) and her husband, (Ethan), who have a son named (Noah Gardner).  Margaret is Chinese American and writes poetry.  Because many people protesting the concept of PACT utilize her poetry containing the line "Our Missing Hearts", she becomes the target of authorities who ban her books in libraries.  Because Margaret does not want to endanger her son, Noah, who she calls "Bird", she and Ethan decide it is best that she leave them so as not to create any danger to either of them, but particularly Noah (Bird).  

Margaret leaves the family and Ethan takes Noah to a new home where they live in a dorm on a university campus where Ethan works in the library.  Noah (Bird) is exposed to some of the demonstrations and protests against PACT, and he even has a friend in school named Sadie, who was taken from her biological parents and "replaced" in a home deemed more patriotic.  And then Sadie disappears.   Mostly, Noah's father tries to shield him from the protests, violence, and repercussions that are occurring due to PACT as well as the hatred directed at those of Chinese-American descent.

Meanwhile, librarians across the US are trying to help find missing children who have been "replaced" by leaving notes or helpful information in library books which are then recirculated to other libraries. When Margaret leaves the family, she goes to find one of her closest friends in New York named Duchess or "Domi".  Margaret sets out on a quest to tell the stories of the missing, "replaced" children.

Meanwhile, Noah (Bird) receives what he believes is a letter from his mom and without telling his dad, ventures to an address in the letter hoping to be reunited with his mom. He finds his mom's friend, Domi, who then reunites him briefly with his mom, Margaret.  And the stories of the "replaced" children gets heard by many in quite an unusual manner which then alters the lives of Ethan, Noah, Domi, and Ethan's lost friend, Sadie. (No giveaways about the ending).

From my research of reviews of this book, readers either loved it or weren't impressed by it.  There were a handful of reviewers that felt the book was okay but missing the prolific characterization skills Celeste Ng used in her previous books.  Now, I am not a fan of literary fiction.  I am not impressed by frilly, sing-song descriptions, and I like books that teach me or expose me to a reality that I can learn from.  Personally, I liked the book.  I did not think it was too long nor did I think I could not get a feel for each character.  And even with the lyrical prose I still finished the book.  Here's what stood out to me about the book:

1)  Discrimination.  The proliferation of discrimination against people of a certain ethnicity because their birth country caused our country great distress.  And what if a leader or leaders in our country tried to pass a law that would cause individuals to lose their children if they were deemed unpatriotic or if their writing, art, and career involved reporting on or showing both sides of how one policy adversely effects a specific group of people in our country?  It is scary to think about and I kept wondering throughout the book, who decides which folks are espousing unpatriotic sentiments so profusely that it warrants removing their children from them??  And what about if the PACT policy causes a group of people to be targeted as "less than" and then they are subsequently mistreated?  

2)  Parents.  This book demonstrated how far a parent is willing to go to protect their child or children.  Margaret decided to leave her family because her poetry was being used in ANTI-PACT demonstrations.  She just walked away on her own.  Other parents who were maybe covering PACT via the news expressing both the pros and cons of PACT would suddenly have their children removed from their home with no idea where their children are going.  The biological parents just know the child or children are being "replaced" to another home deemed more worthy because that family fully supports PACT and does not espouse unpatriotic or ideas against PACT.   Our country already has a long history of families being broken apart by slavery, boarding schools for Indigenous children, and foster care. What happens to parents and children when their biological family is disassembled? Will they ever recover from such an action?

3)  Power of One Person To Make A Difference.  The mother in this story, Margaret, decides to tell the stories of children who have been taken from their parents due to PACT.  She no longer has her family and many protesters of PACT have lost their lives demonstrating against it.  Many of those who express discontent against PACT use her poetry in their protests. Who will tell the country and world about that individual who lost his/her life for speaking out against PACT? Or who will even tell the story of a child or children who have been removed from their biological family and "replaced" with another family?  Margaret uses research, voice, and craftiness to honor those lost or "replaced" due to PACT by telling their stories.

Though I am most likely not going to suddenly become a fan of the Dystopian genre, this book made me think and consider the "what ifs" of laws implemented in our country due to policymakers and our government.  And it really makes me want to examine and know more about our government representatives before I vote to put them in office.

I would most definitely recommend this book particularly in this election year.

Best,

Grace (Amy)

Real Life Recollection: When A Pastor Refuses To Speak With Your Dying Mom

 Dear Lit Loves,

Greetings.  I do not have a book review ready to post today.  There is nothing in the world of publishing I want to rant or rave about.  If I did have something to say about publishing it is this:  why is it necessary for a writer/author to have thousands of followings on social media or be present on every form of social media in order to get published?  Some writers like me do not engage with social media because I view it as vain, intrusive, and it adversely affects my health.  No joke.  Some writers do not engage in social media because a relative works in a field whereby abstaining from social media is part of your job.

Interestingly, a relative of mine recently told me if I needed thousands of followers to land a literary agent or publishing deal, it would not be a problem.  My relative is so internet savvy he/she can make it look like I have more than the current eight followers and also show thousands of views of my blog.  I replied, "No, I am remaining truthful.  If Algonquin Books never recognizes the writer sitting in their backyard with many meaningful manuscripts on her computer, well, so be it."

No.  I'm not going there today.  What lays heavy on my heart is the upcoming one-year anniversary of witnessing my mother's death.  She was my last parent as I had already lost my dad in 2015 after a twelve-year battle with a rare cancer.  Riding with my brother on Monday of this week going to Winston-Salem to tie up another loose end regarding mom's estate, I admitted our mother's death was like a frying pan to our faces.  

This is how it went:  Mom was fine.  Mom thought she had pulled a muscle.  Then mom called me early one morning asking me to drive over to her house because she was in a great deal of pain and wanted me to go visit her primary physician with her.  We did.  Mom was sent for a CT scan.  I was with mom when her primary care doctor called to say mom had a tumor the size of an apple sitting at the bottom of her esophagus and pushing on her surrounding organs.  Next, we made a trip to a hospital ER.  Then mom was assigned an oncologist.  The oncologist wanted mom to have an endoscopy in order to biopsy the mass (tumor) seen on the imaging from the CT scan.  November 28th, 2022, mom, my brother, and I listened to the oncologist tell us mom had stage four, inoperable esophageal cancer.  It was the end of the day.  The oncologist was drumming his fingers on the desk at which he sat.

You could have heard a pin drop in the patient room at that moment.  My brother was with us via cell phone.  The oncologist did inform us of the treatment option that might give mom two more years with us.  And then mom asked the oncologist, "What if I opt for no treatment?"  The oncologist said, "If you opt for no treatment ma'am, I need to call in hospice ASAP."  Mom told the oncologist she would think about it and discuss it with my sibling and I in private.  Mom opted for no treatment.

My brother and I knew we could not keep running back and forth to our hometown to care for our mom.  So, we brought mom over to spend her remaining weeks with us as we live near one another.  In the beginning, mom was able to go back and forth between our homes so we could care for her.  I phoned the oncologist and asked for hospice help over in our area.  Hospice employees met with us at my dining room table.  We let them know our mom was insisting on her desire to go spend her final days in a hospice facility. She most likely did not wish for us to witness daily what was coming.  We were informed there was no available room at the hospice facility and the pandemic took a hit on hospice staffing levels so there were not even enough hospice caretakers if a room had become available.

My brother and I witnessed our mom lose her mobility:  mom went from using a cane, to a walker, and finally to a wheelchair in the span of two weeks.  We witnessed our mother no longer be able to eat and lose control of her bodily functions.  I tried to obtain the time of a pastor who had served at mom's church for well over a decade, but he recently chose to move to another church.  The new minister had only been on the job a little over five months.  I tried my darndest to track down my mom's former pastor so she could at least speak with him on the phone.  I kept leaving him phone messages.

At the end of that particular day, my brother and I were standing in line at CVS waiting to pick up pain meds hospice had prescribed for our mom.  I thought I heard my cell phone vibrate so I checked it to see if mom or my husband were trying to reach us.  No.  It was the pastor I had left a message for requesting him to call and speak with my mom as she was dying.  He had text me that he could no longer minister to anyone from my mom's church.  We would have to request the new minister at mom's church speak with her though that was not her request.  I think my heart dropped right out of my chest and is still lying somewhere on the floor near the CVS pharmacy where people have walked all over it by now.  I showed the text to my brother.  He read it and said, "It figures."

I knew that mom's previous pastor allegedly had encountered some friction with other members of mom's church.  I also knew that my mom was not one of those people.  She had attended that church with my dad for close to 48 years.  They gave offerings weekly to the church.  Mom led a women's circle at the church that helped provide holiday gifts and treats to a class at a low-income elementary school.  

When mom took her last breath, we were exhausted, drained, and traumatized.  I called the funeral home in our hometown where mom's body had been taken.  I informed the funeral home director that we needed a day to refuel our energy.  The day we did go to the funeral home, I took a new dress, undergarments, shoes, and accessories for my mom who would be buried in a casket as she did not wish to be cremated.  It was just my brother, me, my husband, and the funeral director.  I knew I had left word with mom's church about the day and time we would be at the funeral home and I would also call later with the day and time of her memorial service.    

We waited for about thirty minutes exchanging documents with the funeral director.  I was waiting for the new pastor to arrive to help us plan mom's graveside memorial service and offer spiritual support.  Finally, the funeral home director encouraged us to start the planning process with her help.  I remember saying to her I had not met the new minister at mom's church yet.  She informed us that she had not yet met him/her either.  And that is when it hit me:  there had been a number of deaths in the last five months at my mom's church and some of those church families had used the same funeral home. If the funeral director had never met the new pastor then he/she most likely was not present at the funeral home with those church families who had experienced the death of a loved one earlier than us.

We planned mom's graveside memorial service.  We secured flowers for the service.  We met with the director at the cemetery where our dad was already buried.  We drove two hours back to our respective residences.  The new pastor did call my brother that evening to speak with him about our mother as my brother was planning to speak at the memorial service.  Thank God for my mom's neighbors, friends, fellow church members, family, and business acquaintances that appeared for the small service.  Thank God for my brother's clients and friends and my friends who showed up for the service.  Their speeches along with my brother's made the service meaningful for us. They comforted us.

I did not want any other of mom's fellow church members, who happened to include people I knew and went to school with, encountering a pastor's refusal to speak with their dying loved one. Nor did I wish for another church family to not have spiritual support at a funeral home.  I intended to inform the leader of our faith about what transpired during and after mom's death.   I do not know if I will ever walk into another church again much less become a member after what occurred before and after my mother's death.  So, I wrote the religion's highest leader I could find to let him/her know of my concerns for others at mom's church who will lose their mother, father, aunt, cousin, brother, or sister in the future.  

Who knew a religion's Elder, Cardinal, President, or Bishop would answer their own email?  This religion's leader did reply to my email.  He/She said the response I would get depended on if it was a church that had recently disconnected from the main religion??  I wrote him/her an email explaining what my concerns were and my reasons for those concerns.  To this day, I have never received any further email responses from the religion's leader.

I do not think God abandoned my mom or family during her death. At times, it felt like it. I do know that before I will ever enter the halls of any church again, I want to know from the pastor how me and my family will be treated at the time of my death and afterward.  That is what I need to know first and foremost.  If a pastor can't be there when you are dying or offer support to your family after a loved one's death, what is the point??

Best,

Grace (Amy)

Review: End Of The Hour: A Therapist's Memoir by Meghan Riordan Jarvis

 Dear Lit Loves,

Happy 2024!  I am absolutely shocked at everything that has happened in my life in the last year.  When I look back on 2023, it just appears as a blur of activity and losses once my mom died at the beginning of 2023 from stage four esophageal cancer.  Maybe seven to eight weeks after diagnosis, my mom was gone.  No real time to begin to digest what was taking place much less comprehend how much trauma my sibling and I would navigate after losing our last parent who up till the end of her life, still resided in our childhood home of nearly 50 years.

On that note, it is most likely no surprise that Meghan Riordan Jarvis's book, End Of The Hour:  A Therapist's Memoir, caught my attention.  Essentially, the book is about what happens when a trauma therapist is overwhelmed by loss.  I tend to think therapists have it all together emotionally so I was intrigued that a therapist would write about the overwhelming loss of both parents within nearly a year of one another.  So, I took the plunge and read the book!

Unlike most editors and literary agents, I like memoirs that are written in a raw, gritty manner (aka tell it like it is).  I get turned off by memoirs written about difficult subjects that are heavy on frilly description and elevated prose.  Just shoot it to me straight as if we are having lunch together, you know?  I was not disappointed in this memoir because Meghan Riordan Jarvis does an excellent job of relaying the messy, turbulent wreckage that can happen to any of us after the death of a loved one.  

First, we see the author as a nine-year -old learning that a best friend's brother has suddenly died from drowning.  Her many siblings and adults go silent.  Meghan's mother gets the rosary.  The whole event stirs within Meghan a mix of anxiety and grief.  Why won't anyone mention or talk about the deceased brother again?  Why won't her best friend whose brother died talk about her brother and what happened to him?  It's like everyone is trying to tiptoe through a minefield.

Next, we learn that Meghan was one of many siblings and her father was often not at home during the week.  And while growing up, Meghan often wonders why her mother is crying at night?  As she advances in age, she realizes that as a child she internalized the art of minimizing your own needs in order to put others' needs first.  She uncovers the revelation that she still lives by the rules and beliefs set forth by her parents.

When Meghan's father is in the final stages of his life, she is often the one with him at the hospital.  She even takes down the names and contact information of who her father wants notified once he dies.  And it was extremely important that her father not die in a bland, sterilized hospital environment but rather at home on the Cape in his own bedroom with a view of the ocean.  Interestingly, Meghan's mom becomes the gatekeeper in terms of access to her father in his final weeks of life.  And then once her father passes, Meghan realizes her mother does not remember much of what happened the week her father died because the hippocampus, or part of the brain responsible for memory, malfunctions under stress leaving one with only fractured memories.

When Meghan's mom dies, she is stunned, disconcerted, and panicked.  Even after the funeral and Meghan's eulogy of her mother, she returns home to find herself still emotionally fragile.  She is so incredibly overwhelmed by loss she regurgitates on the return trip to her DC home from her parents' home on the Cape.  When she forces herself to attend her son's sixth grade open house, she appears fine until the teacher mentions how she and her mother went camping in Alaska over the summer.  The urge to scream sets in as she wonders why this teacher got more time with her mom than she did.  And when one of the other parents informs the teacher that she is distressed to learn that the subject of death was discussed during class on a previous day, Meghan has to leave.  What's the problem with talking about death?  Why do some parents demand their child not be privy to discussions of death? Why is the discussion of death so taboo? 

When Megan finds herself swimming at three in the morning, sitting in the shower with her cell phone, and trying to understand why her body is breaking down physically and mentally, it is her best friend who pulls the fire alarm.  Her best friend has the guts to say, "You need next level care."  Meghan puts her best friend on ice, but eventually realizes her best friend is right.  And yes, Meghan signs up for care at the very facility she recommends to her trauma patients in therapy.  

And the trauma treatment facility is where the author learns her anxiety may stem not from the fact that help was not available during childhood, but that she never learned to ask for help.  For three weeks Meghan works through her panic and anxiety regarding the loss of her parents via a host of therapists and activities along with an occasional field trip.  Here's the truth:  no one is coming to save you but you.  We don't really own anything except our memories which fade with time. Essentially, we all eventually will encounter the death of our nearest and dearest.  Grief is different for each individual.  It is up to us to learn to live without those we love and the places and traditions dearest to us.  It is we who must find the resolve to keep moving forward after a loved one's death even if it is only one baby step at a time.

I highly recommend this book to anyone experiencing traumatic, complex grief, to grief counselors, and to all grief support groups.

Till my next review,

Grace (Amy)

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