“Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution—more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.” Lisa Cron
Opposable thumbs got me into trouble today. The right one in particular—it aided and abetted my primary hand in hoisting bacon and date dip on toasted baguette into my stuffed gut. Everyone should have been so lucky. But that’s not what I’m hangin’ onto. I’m locked on Celeste Ng’s latest story: Our Missing Hearts. Unlike the bacon and dates, this book does not satiate—it isn’t meant to make an American audience feel comfortable. Some are calling Our Missing Hearts dystopian. Others disagree with that label. If dystopia constitutes, “An imaginary place in which everything is as bad as possible,” it’s safe to say, OMH is not feelin’ good in the neighborhood.
America has a new standard for keeping time: before and after “The Crisis.” Economically devastating and chaotic, the crisis eventually ends with the passing of PACT—the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act—which essentially marginalizes persons of Asian origin. Fear and Suspicion replace freedom and speech in the home of the not-so-brave. Could things be worse? Books aren’t being burned; they’re being pulped instead. And children of vocal parents who don’t meet the status quo are being taken from their homes. When Bird Gardner’s Chinese mom preemptively leaves her boy and husband to spare her son’s “replacement” in a foster home because of some poems she wrote in grad school (that are being subversively interpreted as radical), their lives change forever. How is Bird supposed to make sense of his surroundings? Fortunately, his twelve-year-old heart hasn’t become embittered, even in the face of abandonment. Thank you, Bird. Because you set out to find your missing mother, I was reminded of the beautiful and horrifying weight of words. Stories are crucial to our evolution. And no one can stop the strong from sharing powerful stories.