Equally Marilyn frequently buys Lydia scientific texts hoping to inspire her, but her daughter has no interest in them. There’s a heart breaking scene where James buys a Christmas present for Lydia hoping she’ll appreciate it but realises how badly he’s disappointed her. However, there is also a lot of tenderness in their attempts to connect and encourage their children. As such both parents place different kinds of pressure on their children to succeed in ways they were not able to in their own lives.

Nor did she obey her mother’s wishes not to marry an Asian man leading her to be estranged from both her family and her ambitions to become a doctor. The mother Marilyn is equally academically gifted, but didn’t receive opportunities to fulfil her scholarly promise. The father James is the child of Chinese immigrants and has worked hard to achieve a position as a professor, but struggles to be accepted as fully American despite being born in this country. Gradually we learn about their unexpressed desires and unacknowledged pain – especially in regards to both overt and more subtle racist treatment the children receive as the only mixed race children in their Middle-American town. The hidden nature of their lives becomes untenable when faced with the enormous tragedy of Lydia’s disappearance. Over time they’ve become so accustomed to not speaking about personal pain and emotional need that they become in some essential ways unknown to each other. Like many families, there’s harmony on the surface but dark undercurrents to the lives of these characters. Celeste Ng describes how Lydia maintained an image of being a popular and successful student, but in reality was a loner who was failing at the science and math courses which her mother Marilyn pushed her to excel at.

The story begins with a missing teenage girl named Lydia Lee and, while this mystery may sound like the premise of a thriller, “Everything I Never Told You” focuses more on the interior lives and complex relationships of the girl’s family members.

Everything i never told