By Audrey Anderson
Hometown Weekly Reporter
On March 20, at the Pine Hill School Auditorium, Celeste Ng, author of “Little Fires Everywhere” and Kristy Pasquariello, the library’s Director of Reader Services, discussed Ng’s book and her writing process before a large and enthusiastic audience of 120+ book lovers. Westwood Library Director Elizabeth McGovern introduced the program by thanking the Westwood Public Library 21st Century Fund and the Friends of Westwood Library for their support. McGovern also praised Westwood’s One Book One Town reading program that included community discussions at both branches of the library, a screening of a documentary about Shaker Heights, OH (the setting for “Little Fires Everywhere”), Ng’s appearance, and a writing contest. She declared that the program helped form “community spirit through shared reading.”
To start, Pasquariello asked Ng about how she got started on writing “Little Fires Everywhere.” Ng answered that after she finished graduate school and was living in Boston, she started to look back at her hometown of Shaker Heights, trying to understand it better.
Ng said the main traits of the residents in idyllic Shaker Heights were being optimistic, believing they have the power to make the world better, and trusting that, with thinking and planning, you could work your way out of difficult scenarios. A typical news story in the local paper would be like one about a woman who called the police because she thought she saw blood in her driveway, but it turned out to be motor oil.
In the 1990s, as Ng was growing up in Shaker Heights, she also saw a different reality as three women were murdered there in the 1990s. The “bubble” of innocence was popping then in her mind, and she was thinking that “there was no perfect place.”
Ng then described details of her writing process. She said that she can’t get started until she knows the direction she’s going in, or the general ending; then she makes up the rest of the story as she goes. Her ideas for characters come out of situations that require them. As a way of getting to know the characters’ likes, dislikes, histories, and traits, she does a lot of writing about them that never appears in the final book. Through their stories, her characters also “drag others along with them” into the plot.
Ng said she tries to make her characters realistic, with both positive attributes and negative ones. For instance, Elena in “Little Fires Everywhere” is an embodiment of Shaker Heights. She means well and cares about people, but she also is rigid about many aspects of life.
At a chance meeting, Ng handed Reese Witherspoon a copy of “Little Fires Everywhere.” Reese and her production partner connected with the book, and produced a series based on the book. In the writers’ room viewpoints and life experiences were represented by multiple writers, so they could be made authentic.
In response to an attendee’s question about whether the character Mia was Asian, Ng related a story behind the development of the character. Originally, in Ng’s mind, Mia was Asian, but then she decided to make her white. Ng would not have presumed to write about a black character with whom she doesn’t share a background. When Witherspoon suggested casting Kerry Washington as Mia, Ng was pleased, since issues of race could be explored authentically in Washington’s performance in the series.
