Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic-including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.īird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Named a Most-Anticipated Book by TIME, Vulture, The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, The Millions, LitHub, Goodreads, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and more.įrom the number one bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear This program is co-presented by Scripps Presents and Skylight Books, and made possible in part by the support of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. Masks will be required and vaccination passes will be checked at the door.ĪSL interpretation will be provided by ProBono ASL. Titles by both Celeste and Gabrielle will be available for sale following the program. This in-person event will start at 7pm PDT and conclude with a book signing.

Ng will be in conversation with Gabrielle Zevin. A suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child, OUR MISSING HEARTS is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can pretend to ignore the most searing injustice. Number one bestselling author and Guggenheim fellow Celeste Ng joins PEN Out Loud to discuss her third novel, OUR MISSING HEARTS.

Reviews of our missing hearts