Everything I Never Told You（中文名《无声告白》）是华裔女作家Celeste Ng（伍绮诗）的处女作，一经出版即登上2014年亚马逊榜首。开头的桥段会让人误以为是悬疑小说，虽然也有悬疑，但正如伍绮诗在她的访谈中说道，这实质上是一个 family story。
Lydia is dead, but they don't know this yet.
好几篇书评都会提到这个开头，也有读者评论说被开头骗进来，最后弃书。我一开始也以为这是个悬疑小说，还在猜想凶手到底是谁，企图在字里行间发现蛛丝马迹。当然到后面谁是凶手这个问题已经不是重点了。看到作者的访谈提到这本书修改了4次，耗费六年写成，初稿并不是这样的结构，读者到中间才会知道Lydia死了，但这会让读者一开始的方向跑偏。而一开始就说明Lydia死了，是为了让读者的问题围绕“Lydia为什么会死”进行，而不是纠结于Lydia到底是死是活。
Lydia为什么会死，这是全书的一个中心，而对于Lydia的死，她的家庭成员，以及Jack和Louisa分别起到了什么样的影响，则随着作者的笔触一一展开。
Lydia的家庭在小镇上十分突出。这与华人当时在美国的处境关系很大。1906年，旧金山大地震，美国移民局的很多档案文件包括华人的出生证明在内毁于大火之中，因此James的父亲才得以冒充亲戚的儿子来到加州。1938年，James又随父亲来到爱荷华州的一个寄宿学校。James作为第一个在该学校上学的东方人，自然显得格格不入。因此James一直希望自己的孩子能够 fit in , 不要像他当年一样。1943年排华法案才正式废除，随后1948年加州华人禁止与白人通婚的规定被废除，但在其他州，类似法规仍在施行。直到1967年，美国最高法院才一致裁决禁止跨种族通婚的法案违宪。Lydia父母大概是在1959年结婚，当时有些州还是禁止华人与白人通婚。
Just days before, hundreds of miles away, another couple had married, too—a white man, a black woman, who would share a most appropriate name: Loving. In four months they would be arrested in Virginia, the law reminding them that Almighty God had never intended white, black, yellow, and red to mix, that there should be no mongrel citizens, no obliteration of racial pride. It would be four years before they protested, and four years more before the court concurred, but many more years before the people around them would, too. Some, like Marilyn’s mother, never would.
而Lydia的母亲Marilyn，从小成绩优异，梦想成为医生。Marilyn抗拒成为母亲那样的人，囿于一日三餐家长里短。但是遇到James和意外怀孕，让她早早成家开始相夫教子。她希望Lydia能够 stand out ，延续她的梦想，继续她未竟之事，不要重蹈她的，以及她母亲的覆辙。
Lydia五岁时Marilyn离家出走，追寻她未完成的梦想，之后因意外受伤和得知Hannah的存在归家。母亲的离开对Lydia来说有最直接最深远的影响。Lydia从此背负着父母的期望，以及她自己做出的许诺生活。
If her mother ever came home and told her to finish her milk, she thought, the page wavering to a blur, she would finish her milk. She would brush her teeth without being asked and stop crying when the doctor gave her shots. She would go to sleep the second her mother turned out the light. She would never get sick again. She would do everything her mother told her. Everything her mother wanted.
所幸的是，她不是一个人。Nath一直和她同行。Lydia和Nath之间存在某种默契，他们相互依靠取暖。这也是长久以来支持Lydia继续下去的动力。Lydia让母亲开心，让父亲欢喜，努力维持着一个美丽的假象。而当Nath找到自己的兴趣所在，目光不再聚焦在Lydia身边，也不再奢望能够得到来自父母的注视，而是迫不及待地逃离这个家时，Lydia只能踽踽独行，被迫困在原地，一个人挣扎。Lydia阻止不了Nath的离开，也阻止不了她内心世界的倾覆。
Lydia一开始是虽然是因为Jack是Nath讨厌的人而和Jack一起，但那段时间我想Lydia反而是愉快的鲜活的。
The smoke burned in her lungs and made her head spin and suddenly she felt sharp and aware. Like cutting your finger, she thought: the pain, and the blood, reminded you that you were alive.
但当她得知Jack喜欢的是Nath时，最后一根弦也崩断。一直以来，Lydia内心被恐惧占据支配，害怕母亲再次离开，害怕这个家分崩离析，也害怕失去Nath。小时候被Nath推到湖里差点溺亡，从此她也害怕水。
Ever since that summer, she had been so afraid—of losing her mother, of losing her father. And, after a while, the biggest fear of all: of losing Nath, the only one who understood the strange and brittle balance in their family. Who knew all that had happened. Who had always kept her afloat.
当明白自己的恐惧时，Lydia决定直面它，她下定决心不再害怕孤单，按自己的心意活。她来到湖边，登上小船最后潜入水中，她拥抱了曾经令她惊慌失措的地方，也把自己永远留在了那里。最后一刻，她是无惧无畏的。
She looked down at the lake, which in the dark looked like nothing, just blackness, a great void spreading beneath her. It will be all right, she told herself, and she stepped out of the boat into the water.
小说的题目Everything I Never Told You，不止包括Lydia对父母的未竟之言，还包括James和Marilyn之间的关系，以及家中其他成员的相互关系。未说出口的，有误解，有伤害，也有爱。从这点上理解，中文名《无声告白》将范围缩小，有未译全之感。刚开始听到这个名字我还以为是一本青春暗恋小说。但从另一方面来说，Lydia一家人，那些伤害误解，最根本的出发点却是爱，因此这个名字也有贴切之处。
在读这本书的时候，印象最深的有两个片段。第一是James和Marilyn两人吵架，Marilyn不满James对警官的态度口不择言。kowtow和coolies这两个词都是来源于中文，叩头和苦力，一个是卑躬屈膝曲意逢迎，一个是廉价劳动力，都是不堪的中国形象，可想而知对James的打击。
“Unlike some people, I don’t just kowtow to the police.”
“In the blur of her fury, Marilyn doesn’t think twice about what she’s said. To James, though, the word rifles from his wife’s mouth and lodges deep in his chest. From those two syllables—kowtow—explode bent-backed coolies in cone hats, pigtailed Chinamen with sandwiched palms. Squinty and servile. Bowing and belittled. He has long suspected that everyone sees him this way—Stanley Hewitt, the policemen, the checkout girl at the grocery store. But he had not thought that everyone included Marilyn.”
另一个则来自于Hannah发现Jack对Nath的感情。在上文我一直没有提到Hannah，作为家中最小的孩子，她没有经历母亲的出走，没有和哥哥姐姐一起共患难，总是一个人躲在各种角落，是最被忽略的存在，也是最让我心酸的一个。这一段初看时震惊了我，隐秘又欢喜的心情。刚开始我还不敢确定，直到后面Jack向Lydia坦白。
Something caught Hannah’s eye then…A drop of water trickled out of Nath’s hair, like a shy little mouse, and ran down the nape of his neck. It made its slow way between his shoulder blades, and where his back curved, it dropped straight down, as if it had jumped off a cliff, and splashed onto the back of Jack’s hand…And Jack himself jumped. He stared at the drop of water without moving, as if it were a rare insect that might fly away. Then, without looking at any of them, he raised his hand to his mouth and touched his tongue to it, as if it were honey.
读这本小说的感觉用一个词来形容就是“不忍猝读”，Celeste的文笔细腻到令人难受。一开始就被告知结局的读者，拼凑着Celeste给出的碎片，一步步还原整个故事。就如同游离在外围，看着一座注定要倾塌的大厦，无力解救，只能静静地，近乎残忍地目睹这一切的发生。但不可否认，这是一部很棒，很有代入感，能够引起共鸣的书。
在这里也把Celeste的谈话视频附上，看完之后，相信对理解这本书更有帮助。听说她的新书也是家庭题材的，期待一下。（https://v.qq.com/x/page/m0510fazx26.html）
