In Celeste Ng’s new novel 'Our Missing Hearts,' a boy searches for his missing mother

Summary

---

NPR's Book of the Day – Episode Summary

Episode: In Celeste Ng’s new novel 'Our Missing Hearts,' a boy searches for his missing mother
Host: Robin Young (at WBUR Festival), Alyssa Nadworny (Podcast intro)
Air Date: July 20, 2026
Featured Guest: Celeste Ng
Book Discussed: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

---

Episode Overview

This episode features a candid conversation with Celeste Ng about her novel Our Missing Hearts, which imagines a dystopian America hostile to Asians, interweaving political tension with personal family dynamics. The discussion delves into Ng’s inspirations, real-life influences, experiences with racism, and the power of empathy and protest—both in fiction and real life.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Celeste Ng’s Writing Process & Themes

• Imagination Guided by Empathy
  • Ng shares that her stories begin with vivid images or questions about characters whose motivations intrigue her:
    • "I think I write because I'm really interested in people and all of the stories that I end up writing are me investigating something that I don't understand...The more I get to know them, the easier it is to sort of figure out how they would behave in any scenario."
      (Celeste Ng, 02:41)
  • She interacts with her characters internally, a point humorously acknowledged:
    • "You understand, of course, that this conversation that you're having with them is with you. Yes, right."
      (Robin Young, 03:09)

2. Autobiography in Fiction & Asian American Experiences

• Personal Reflections Woven Into Stories
  • Ng recognizes her own life in her work, especially themes of feeling “othered”:
    • "I do think that a lot of it is me emotionally working through some of my experiences...And so I've had some experience of knowing what it's like for people to look at you and assume one thing about you."
      (Celeste Ng, 03:41)
  • Representation of anti-Asian discrimination is not invented:
    • "Every example of anti Asian discrimination in all three of my books is something that either I've experienced or one of my friends who's Asian has. That's sometimes a shock to people to realize just how common and pervasive it still is."
      (Celeste Ng, 04:34)

3. The Reality of Racism

• Direct Encounters
  • Ng recounts a childhood incident:
    • "There was that guy who got in our faces at a bus stop and spat at us and then told you all to go back to Vietnam or Korea or wherever the hell you came from. That's not bad? That would have traumatized, I would think."
      (Robin Young, 05:00)
    • Ng responds candidly about trauma and parental worries:
      • "I think it did traumatize me...for most of my life, I didn't feel a physical fear, which is something that many other people do. I think about that as a parent with, you know, a part Asian child. How much do I want to tell him to put him on his guard, and how much do I want to not tell him because I don't want to introduce these fears into his life?"
        (Celeste Ng, 05:21)

4. From Real-World Events to Dystopian Fiction

• Our Missing Hearts as Nightmare Realized
  • Ng acknowledges that her fictional dystopia closely echoes real events:
    • "On paper, I mean, it's one of my worst nightmares and came true in real life. There is one scene in the novel...borrowed directly from life. In the spring of 2020, there was a lot of anti Asian hate.... And he came out and he closed the door. When I saw that, I felt like that was something that I needed to put into the book almost as sort of a witnessing or a testimonial..."
      (Celeste Ng, 06:22)

5. Motherhood & Resistance

• Intersections of Family and Activism
  • When asked if the "heroic mom" character channels her own fears and hopes:
    • "Some. I do think she is me working through some of those issues because one of the questions...is how do you raise a child in this world knowing that this world is going to be hostile to them?...You don’t realize how pressing the problems are until they're right at your doorstep."
      (Celeste Ng, 07:18)
  • Robin Young admires the emotional intensity:
    • "I have to tell you, this was sweaty palm reading."
      (Robin Young, 07:48)

6. Art, Protest & Female Agency

• Creative Resistance
  • Ng discusses "yarn bombing" as both art and protest:
    • "It's called yarn bombing...And it's very feminine coded. It's sort of a woman sort of thing. There are crafts, and women are often sort of overlooked as people who are making change. And this is one of those movements that I think often is trying to push against that idea."
      (Celeste Ng, 08:00)

7. Influence of Gene Sharp and Nonviolent Protest

• Grounding Fiction in Historical Resistance
  • Robin Young and Ng discuss the influence of Gene Sharp, renowned for writing about peaceful protest:
    • "I really wanted to acknowledge in the book that this is not new. There have been dictators and authoritarian regimes, and there have also been people who resisted them...Things that people can do...just encouraged people to believe that change was possible."
      (Celeste Ng, 08:49)

8. Empathy Through Writing and Reading

• Fostering Understanding
  • Ng asserts writing as an exercise in empathy:
    • "I don't think that any of the characters in any of my three books are perfect by any means...And that for me, is where the empathy comes in...I do think that is sort of a muscle. And that when you can practice that in reading, hopefully that allows you to do it more in real life."
      (Celeste Ng, 09:16)
    • Ng encourages readers to re-examine their judgments:
      • "I hope the book raises some questions for you to think. Is there someone that I have been misjudging or seeing a different way? And is there a way that I can see them differently?"
        (Celeste Ng, 10:36)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Celeste Ng on character creation:
  • "All of the stories that I end up writing are me investigating something that I don't understand." (02:41)
• On facing discrimination:
  • "Every example of anti Asian discrimination in all three of my books is something that either I've experienced or one of my friends who's Asian has." (04:34)
• On bearing witness through fiction:
  • "When I saw that [video of an anti-Asian attack], I felt like that was something that I needed to put into the book almost as sort of a witnessing or a testimonial" (06:22)
• On activism in art:
  • "There are crafts, and women are often sort of overlooked as people who are making change. And this is one of those movements that I think often is trying to push against that idea." (08:00)
• On empathy as a writer and reader:
  • "I want to feel that no one is completely ununderstandable, because if someone is completely ununderstandable, it means that we have no way of connecting with them. And I can't think that about other humans." (09:16)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:02–01:09: Introduction to Celeste Ng, overview of her works
• 02:41: Ng on her writing process and character immersion
• 03:41: Ng discusses writing from personal Asian American experience
• 04:34: Anti-Asian discrimination in her books and life
• 05:21: Ng describes a traumatic childhood encounter with racism
• 06:22: Real-life events inspiring ‘Our Missing Hearts’
• 07:18: Exploring motherhood and activism in her latest novel
• 08:00: Yarn bombing and women’s protest
• 08:49: Gene Sharp’s impact and peaceful resistance
• 09:16: Empathy in writing and reading
• 10:36: Closing reflections

---

tone and Takeaways

Celeste Ng speaks with directness, warmth, and deep thoughtfulness, sharing not just the craft of writing but the lived realities that fuel her art. The episode powerfully links present-day racism with dystopian fiction and stresses the enduring importance of empathy, both on and off the page.

---

Transcript

[Alyssa Nadworny]

Hello, I'm Alyssa Nadworny and you're listening to NPR's Book of the Day. Celeste Ng's 2022 novel Our Missing Hearts takes place in a dystopian future where China and people of Asian descent are considered enemies of the U.S. like so many of her novels, these big ideas are centered around a family with secrets. Ng spoke to hear a host, Robin Young, in May at the WBUR Festival in Boston.

[NPR Host / Announcer]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Wayfair. Your space should feel like you. And if it doesn't yet, that's probably not a taste problem, it's a budget problem. Wayfair fixes that. Seating, grills, appliances, storage, lighting, rugs, decor, one place, everything you need. And with over 20 million five star reviews, you're not buying blind Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. That's W a Y F A I r dot com welcome Celeste Ng.

[Celeste Ng]

Thank you.

[Robin Young]

A mostly young adult audience packed this session at the recent WBUR Festival in Boston to hear from author Celeste Ng. Her family came to America from Hong Kong in the late 60s. She was born in Pittsburgh, grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Her three three best selling novels explore the delicate balance of being a family and often of being Asian American. In the first book, Everything I Never Told you'd, there is much an Asian American family never tells each other. Then one day a favorite child is found at the bottom of a pond in Little Fires Everywhere, which was also a TV miniseries. A mother strives for perfection. A daughter who was not the favorite child burns the family house down as the family stands outside watching it go. Celeste Ng's most recent novel, Our Missing Hearts, is about an America that has become a dystopian authoritarian regime after a financial collapse. Children can be removed from homes if parents question the government. A mother of Asian descent fights to save her child and the country. Where does Celeste Ng get these ideas? Let's find out. Here's a portion of our conversation with author Celeste Ng. You write in one of your fantastic author's notes at the end of the book. You start by envisioning and imagining. Your first book started with imagining a girl floating to the bottom of water. This girl does not get saved. So how do you do that? How do you stay with an image and let it go there?

[Celeste Ng]

I think I write because I'm really interested in people and all of the stories that I end up writing are me Investigating something that I don't understand. How did this girl end up in the lake? And I'll tell myself, just spend some time with this character. Where did they grow up? What's bothering them? And the more I get to know them, the easier it is to sort of figure out how they would behave in any scenario. So that's how I approach it.

[Robin Young]

You understand, of course, that this conversation that you're having with them is with you. Yes, Right.

[Celeste Ng]

That occurred to me as it was coming out of my mouth. Wacky.

[Robin Young]

You write in Little fires about the mom who wants this perfect family and Shaker Heights. We also see in your writing that Asian American children are told to not attract attention, to not stand out, to be perfect. So how much of your writing is working through your own experience?

[Celeste Ng]

I do think that a lot of it is me emotionally working through some of my experiences. In my first elementary school, I was born outside of Pittsburgh and I was one of two people of color. There was one black girl, there was one Jewish girl, and then there was me, the one Asian girl. And we were the only ones who were sort of different. And so I've had some experience of knowing what it's like for people to look at you and assume one thing

[Robin Young]

about you working out how people view you. I mean, it's just othering throughout all the books. When it's time for an Asian American kid, this isn't your first book to be it. In a game of Marco Polo, all the other kids climb out of the pool. Or a cashier learns somebody in her line is Chinese and pulls back her eyes into slits. If I've got this right in the author's notes, you didn't have to imagine you saw or heard or lived them.

[Celeste Ng]

Yeah, I think every example of anti Asian discrimination in all three of my books is something that either I've experienced or one of my friends who's Asian has. That's sometimes a shock to people to realize just how common and pervasive it still is. Right. After Everything I never Told you'd was published, I had a number of readers come up to me with the best meaning. Say, I didn't realize that Asian Americans face discrimination.

[Robin Young]

Well, and I want to say that at one point you write, it wasn't really bad for our family. There was that guy who got in our faces at a bus stop and spat at us and then told you all to go back to Vietnam or Korea or wherever the hell you came from. That's not bad. That would have traumatized, I would think.

[Celeste Ng]

I think it did traumatize me. I mean, I was 11 at the time, and I was standing at a bus stop in downtown Cleveland. I guess what I mean by it's not that bad was that even though that was terrible, for most of my life, I didn't feel a physical fear, which is something that many other people do fear. I think about that as a parent with, you know, a part Asian child. How much do I want to tell him to put him on his guard, and how much do I want to not tell him because I don't want to introduce these fears into his life? This is a version of the talk that I think that black and brown families have with their kids. A lot.

[Robin Young]

Well. And I'm wondering how much of that just crashed into our missing hearts.

[Celeste Ng]

A lot of it. Yeah.

[Robin Young]

Okay. This is about a government that has just cracked down with this policy pact. But the reason for it, people out of work, people starving. The blame is placed on China, and Asian people are thrown to the ground and stomped on. And nobody stops, nobody looks. Whoa. Is that your worst nightmare come true?

[Celeste Ng]

On paper, I mean, it's one of my worst nightmares and came true in real life. There is one scene in the novel that takes place in midtown Manhattan that was one of the few places where I really borrowed directly from life. In the spring of 2020, there was a lot of anti Asian hate. There was a case in which a person was grabbed and stomped in midtown in the middle of the day. Nobody did anything except for the doorman at the building that this happened in front of. And he came out and he closed the door. When I saw that, I felt like that was something that I needed to put into the book almost as sort of a witnessing or a testimonial to say that it is a thing that can happen. It is a thing that did happen and something that I want people to have to think about.

[Robin Young]

And I'm wondering too, if the fact that there's a heroic mom, super mom, in a way, how much is this you and your son?

[Celeste Ng]

Some. I do think she is me working through some of those issues because one of the questions that I had going into the novel is how do you raise a child in this world knowing that this world is going to be hostile to them? I think, honestly, the way that the mother in the book is the most like me is the fact that she didn't plan to do any of this. So I think if she had been given her choice, like many of us, she would have chosen to just sit this out. You don't Realize how pressing the problems are until they're right at your doorstep.

[Robin Young]

I have to tell you, this was sweaty palm reading. And here I just want to ask you about something you do in all your books. There's something always lovely. There's art, including a yarn protest.

[Celeste Ng]

Yeah, it's called yarn bombing. The way yarn bombing usually works is that the people who are doing it usually do it anonymously, usually overnight. And they will just decorate something, a tree, a building, a sculpture with crochet, knitting, something like that. And it's very feminine coded. It's sort of a woman sort of thing. There are crafts, and women are often sort of overlooked as people who are making change. And this is one of those movements that I think often is trying to push against that idea.

[Robin Young]

I was also really happy to see Gene Sharp mentioned. He decades ago wrote the definitive book on peaceful protest. And in countries around the world, people learn. And I was able to go find him and I was able to do an interview with him before he died. And his book overthrew dictators. How did his work inform you?

[Celeste Ng]

Well, I really wanted to acknowledge in the book that this is not new. There have been dictators and authoritarian regimes, and there have also been people who resisted them. That led me to Jean Sharp and his book From Dictatorship to Democracy. Things that people can do. There were marches and there were things like that, but there were also things that just encouraged people to believe that change was possible.

[Robin Young]

You have also said that writing is empathy.

[Celeste Ng]

I don't think that any of the characters in any of my three books are perfect by any means. I think all of them do things you would question. And that for me, is where the empathy comes in. I think that I have to understand the characters well enough to portray the darker sides or the mistakes or the blind spots that they have. And likewise for the reader. I've had readers who have come up to me and they're like, I need to know, why did you make the dad so unlikable? And I'll say, you know, but I hope that you understood why he was doing some of the things. I mean, I do think that is sort of a muscle. And that when you can practice that in reading, hopefully that allows you to do it more in real life. The other thing that I do to practice empathy as a writer is that I read a lot. I read a lot of nonfiction as well as fiction. I try to stay up to date with the news with guardrails for mental health, and try genuinely to understand, okay, why are you doing that? Even if I completely disagree. Can I at least understand your way of thinking? I want to feel that no one is completely un understandable, because if someone is completely ununderstandable, it means that we have no way of connecting with them. And I can't think that about other humans. What I always want at the end. I hope the book raises some questions for you to think. Is there someone that I have been misjudging or seeing a different way? And is there a way that I can see them differently?

[Robin Young]

Author Celeste Ng at the recent WBUR festival. Her latest book, our Missing Hearts.

[NPR Host / Announcer]

This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees and free perks, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop [e-mail] Switch taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Celeste Ng]

One year after Congress eliminated federal funding for public media, NPR remains committed to informing the public. But a free press doesn't just happen. It's something we must protect. Without federal funding, we're relying on your support now. Please show your Support today at plus.NPR.org

[NPR Host / Announcer]

after a DNA test revealed a family secret, questions started swirling.

[Celeste Ng]

Where am I in the universe? And I had a desperate need to

[NPR Host / Announcer]

find out the truth. Brought dozens of strangers together, the secret family of a fertility doctor. Listen now to the Sunday story from the upverse podcast on the NPR app.