Our Missing Hearts: A Novel

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her—only that her books have been banned—and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.   

Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, & soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, & finally to New York City, where he will finally learn the truth about what happened to his mother, & what the future holds for them both.  

Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s about the lessons &legacies we pass on to our children, & the power of art to create change.

Celeste Ng is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts & the Guggenheim Foundation, & her work has been published in over thirty languages.