Author: Celeste Ng
Shaker Heights, the setting for this second novel by Celeste Ng (pronounced ing), is a scrupulously ordered Cleveland suburb, a quarter of Eisenhower America updated and liberalised for the 1990s, but still a place of rules, homogeneity and complacently achievable material ambition. It fancies its greatest rival is Heaven itself. Shaker Heights is surely due a shake-up.
It gets it with the arrival of Mia Warren, an itinerant photographer-artist who travels light, save for bringing her daughter, Pearl. Mia and Pearl are characters to get a crush on. Even their faults — and Mia’s past turns out to be a wilful muddle — are adorable. She is self-sufficient, uninterested in community, but perceptive about individuals, whom she regards as works of art waiting to happen.
> Shiuly Akter
