When a TV Adaptation Does What the Book Could Not

At first glance, the novel Little Fires Everywhere seems to be a suburban whodunit. In the opening chapter, a house in a progressive neighborhood of Shaker Heights, Ohio, has burned down after someone set a series of fires inside its bedrooms—and no one knows why. But then the tale rewinds to the previous summer, and from there it becomes a study of two women—Elena Richardson, a wealthy mother of four, and Mia Warren, a nomadic single mom, who become inextricably linked. Their relationships stir up a dangerous obsession among both families, revealing the story to be less a crime thriller and more a clever, moving examination of motherhood, female ambition, and sexual politics.

Set in 1997, Little Fires is an audacious novel, hence the 48 weeks it spent on the New York Times’ hardcover-fiction best-seller list. The story is not just about two women who don’t get along. The author, Celeste Ng, posits that their conflict stems from the fact that the women are not meant to connect, because they are constrained by their circumstances. Elena, who’s rich and intelligent and mannerly, understands success to mean a nuclear family. To her, Mia’s lifestyle as an artist and a photographer seems exotic. The privileged Elena will always see Mia as inferior, even if Elena refuses to admit it.

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