Aaron Lake
EINTY blog
4/27/17
Readers can see recipes at work in Celeste Ng’s novel Everything I Never Told You. The novel follows an Asian American family, struggling after their oldest daughter Lydia turns up dead. Ng incorporates recipes all over the novel. A recipe is by definition “something that is likely to lead to a particular outcome.” In two very obvious instances, Ng uses recipes to give the reader insight into the past that lead to the present event
In chapter three of Everything I Never Told You, Lydia’s father, James, begins an affair with his teaching assistant, Louisa Chen. A recipe (with the key ingredient being Lydia’s death), brings James to this point. James and Louisa have long had some mutual attraction. They blush like kids when a coworker walks in on them talking. The fact that Ng devotes two and a half pages to detail Louisa and James’ history let's the reader know she will be a character well involved in the novel.
Ng makes it clear that something has been developing between James and Louisa, but their chemistry is only a part of the recipe. It's not hard to believe that the only asians around would have some form of connection. The main ingredient in the recipe of James’s infidelity is obviously the death of his daughter. Losing Lydia put James in a very bad place, and forced him to turn to something or someone to help him cope. James’s vulnerability is without a doubt an important ingredient. Louisa sees his vulnerability and deliberately decides to take advantage of his weakness. Ng combines James vulnerability and Louisa’s desire for him to help create another ingredient for an affair between the two. Many factors or ingredients build up to the major event of James and Louisa sleeping together. Ng does well to combine ingredients to create a new plot event.
Before the novel takes place, Lydia’s mother disappears. Using a recipe, Ng shows the reader what pushed Marilyn to leave. Ng’s recipe begins years and years before the present, when Marilyn gets pregnant with Nath. Her and James weren't expecting the pregnancy, and Marilyn is forced to drop out of school to stay home and take care of their child. She does so assuming that before long she will able to return to school and finish her degree, but this chance to return doesn't materialize for years.
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Later, Marilyn’s mother dies, and while cleaning out her mother’s house Marilyn realizes that she does not want to die a housewife. Her mother's cookbook, the only thing in her mother's house that Marilyn decided to keep, was the key ingredient in the recipe of Marilyn's disappearance. She wants to leave more than a cookbook for her kids when she dies. The book helps Marilyn realize that she's unhappy with the life she has chosen, or was forced to choose. Another piece of the recipe for Marilyn’s disappearance comes when she sees her neighbor, Dr. Janet Wolf,f at the local hospital. Seeing another independent successful woman with a career really hurts Marilyn, and makes her jealous, and makes her want to change her life. Dr. Wolff helps push Marilyn into action, and Marilyn decides to leave her family to return to college, living in a small apartment nearby. She leaves her family with a letter explaining why she can no longer stay, and begging for forgiveness. Ng lays out the backstory to a relatively minor event in the novel with such a detailed recipe, which shows just how highly Ng values recipes in her writing.
Later, Marilyn’s mother dies, and while cleaning out her mother’s house Marilyn realizes that she does not want to die a housewife. Her mother's cookbook, the only thing in her mother's house that Marilyn decided to keep, was the key ingredient in the recipe of Marilyn's disappearance. She wants to leave more than a cookbook for her kids when she dies. The book helps Marilyn realize that she's unhappy with the life she has chosen, or was forced to choose. Another piece of the recipe for Marilyn’s disappearance comes when she sees her neighbor, Dr. Janet Wolf,f at the local hospital. Seeing another independent successful woman with a career really hurts Marilyn, and makes her jealous, and makes her want to change her life. Dr. Wolff helps push Marilyn into action, and Marilyn decides to leave her family to return to college, living in a small apartment nearby. She leaves her family with a letter explaining why she can no longer stay, and begging for forgiveness. Ng lays out the backstory to a relatively minor event in the novel with such a detailed recipe, which shows just how highly Ng values recipes in her writing.
Recipes are a common theme of Everything I Never Told You, and come before every plot event. For smaller events Ng’s recipes are more brief, and vice versa, but they are ever present. After the death of Lydia, the recipe to her death will in time be revealed by Ng. As the book builds to the discovery of how Lydia died, recipes for her death become more and more prominent. Was she unhappy, and enough so to commit suicide? Did Jack kill her, and what recipe brought him to do this? Ng’s recipe make the novel flow smoothly, provide information, and help the plot to make sense. Ng uses recipes to great effect, to help the story flow smoothly, and to ensure that the reader has a good understanding of the text.
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