Now, Bebe wants May Ling back from the McCulloughs, the Shaker Heights family who adopted her. May Ling is the daughter of Bebe Chow, a struggling Chinese immigrant who left her infant at the fire station when she was no longer able to care for her. In Little Fires Everywhere, Ng explores the town's perceived 'blind spots' through the case of May Ling Chow-or Mirabelle McCullough, depending on which character is talking. I was interested in that tension, and I wanted to try to write about it.' It does struggle with issues of race and class, like everywhere else does. Speaking to NBC News, Ng said, 'I now see some of the blind spots has. While she called Shaker a 'really great place to grow up,' time and distance have given her a clearer understanding of her hometown. “If there was an Asian boy, the other kids would be like, ‘Oh, you two are going to have an arranged marriage,’” she recalled to Time.

As one of the town's few Asian residents, Ng experienced that unpleasantness first-hand while enduring racial slights from classmates. And houses can only be painted certain colors, depending on whether they were built in the Tudor, English, or French style.Īll this planning is upheld by a deliberate philosophy: 'Everything could-and should-be planned out, and that by doing so you could avoid the unseemly, the unpleasant, and the disastrous.'īut as Little Fires Everywhere shows, the 'unseemly, unpleasant, and disastrous' still exists, even if it's hidden behind a highly manicured exterior. I was thinking about how I could personify this place with its wonderful aspects and its faults,” Ng told The New York Times.Įarly on in Little Fires Everywhere, Ng describes the many rules Shaker residents abide by in order to keep their town manicured and running efficiently. It shaped me into an idealist and a person who believes you can have an impact on the world. “I’d been away for about 10 years and I recognized both the weirdness of growing up in this community that was very socially oriented and race-conscious, yet still had blind spots. Little Fires Everywhere is set in 1998, the year Ng graduated from Shaker Heights High. Knowing she wanted her second novel to be set there, Ng reverse-engineered a plot that could play out, and challenge, her hometown's idiosyncrasies. However, every part of this novel is informed by Ng's childhood growing up in Shaker Heights, a planned community located eight miles from Cleveland. The Best Spoilers From Little Fires Everywhereĭid this drastic act of arson really happen in 1990s Shaker Heights? Simply put, no: The events of Little Fires Everywhere are fictional.

The act is based off of what true story