Our Missing Hearts

“Wherever Our Hearts Went Missing” is a new novel by Celeste Ng, author of the bestsellers “And Every Fire Is Burning” and “Everything I Never Told You,” about unwavering, absolute maternal love in a world gripped by fear. Twelve-year-old Choi lives quietly and calmly with his loving but broken father. Once, his father was a linguist; now he works as a librarian. Choi knows he mustn’t stand out. Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t go too far from home. The last ten years of Choi’s life—and his father’s—are shaped by new laws aimed at preserving American culture after years of economic instability and violence. The government believes that to safeguard national security and put the country back on the path to prosperity, traditional values must be supported: protesters stripped of parental rights, and any books that contradict the law and the spirit of patriotism confiscated from libraries and bookstores. Among those books is a poetry collection by Choi’s mother—a Chinese-American poet who disappeared when the boy was nine. Choi lives having completely cut off his mother and her poems, but when a mysterious letter arrives with an unfamiliar drawing, he sets out to find her. “Wherever Our Hearts Went Missing” is a painfully familiar story in which a supposedly civilized society pretends not to see a fatal injustice. It’s a story about how art creates change, about the legacy we leave our children. A story about how to survive a shattered world and keep your heart. — — —