I don’t know about you, but I appreciate an accurate book to screen adaptation. In fact, if I have read the book beforehand, I become especially critical of the on-screen version. As I watch, I often catch myself trying to pick out differences between the book and movie/series instead of just watching through the eyes of someone who has not read the book would. As bookworms, we feel a certain bias towards the book, so it’s completely normal to nitpick at every small difference. However, the Hulu adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng took some rather creative liberties when it came to the interpretations of the events and relationships which took me by surprise.
At first I was appalled at how they could make such radical changes to Ng’s original work and found it a bit difficult to swallow. But the more I reflected on these changes, I found that they make perfect sense. Books and film/tv are two different beasts within the entertainment industry. The fact of the matter is, authors and screenwriters do not write for the same audience. What would normally appeal to readers doesn’t necessarily translate to the standards and expectations of film and television.
Quick Synopsis: In her debut novel, Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng writes about two families and the little fires they endure on a day to day basis. Elena (journalist) and Bill Richardson (lawyer) along with their four children live in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a self-proclaimed progressive suburb of Cleveland. Elena, who prides herself on being the do-gooder that everyone admires, welcomes Mia Warren, a free-spirited artist and her daughter Pearl as her newest tenants. Pearl quickly befriends Moody Richardson and his siblings. Meanwhile, Elena and Mia’s opposing points of view on life cause a growing tension between the two families.
Warning: Spoilers ahead. Read at your own discretion.
Racial Tensions
In the book, racial tensions arise when Mia’s Chinese co-worker and friend, Bebe Chow, seeks to regain custody of her baby from the couple who took her in while Bebe could not care for her. They are an all-American couple who despite many trials, were not able to have children of their own. They also happen to be close friends of the Richardsons and ask Bill to represent them in the custody trails.
The story of the custody battle for the Asian American baby also plays out in the Hulu series with a very emotional Bebe Chow played by Lu Huang. However, the producers decided to add another layer of racial tension between the Richardsons and the Warrens by portraying Mia as a Black woman. Ng told the LA Times that she had wanted to make Mia a woman of color in the book, but as an Asian American woman herself, she felt she would not be able to properly write from a Black woman’s experience. For this reason, Mia and Pearl’s race is not specified in the book. Fortunately, the adaptation to the Hulu series presented the perfect opportunity to explore that perspective through Kerry Washington who brilliantly plays the role of Mia.
Both the book and the show take place in the 1990’s Shaker Heights. Today, Shaker Heights is still a predominately white neighborhood, which makes it a perfect setting for the story. In the show it is also made to represent similar neighborhoods all over the country. The racial tension between Elena and Mia is universal dynamic and makes a very good subject matter for a television series in today’s age.
Elena vs. Izzy
In both the book and Hulu series, the mother-daughter relationship between Elena and Izzy is nothing less than hostile. The more her mother pushes to mold her into the “perfect daughter”, the more Izzy acts out and rebels against her. However, the drama is turned up a notch or two on screen. There are frequent screaming matches and cruel words exchanged. At one point Elena tells her daughter that she never wanted her in the first place. This was a shocking moment. She never said those words in the book, but the harshness of the words was not what surprised me. It was the backstory of Elena’s hostility towards Izzy that had me raising an eyebrow.
The show’s backstory: A young Elena played by Anna Sophia Robb paints a picture of an up and coming journalist who leaves an opportunity to stay in Paris in order to return to her hometown in Ohio. A decision she regrets greatly. She proceeds to marry a successful man and they have three children who despite the motherhood struggles she faces, bring her joy. It was the fourth and unexpected child that essentially breaks her, and all of a sudden she is reminded of the life she could have had, making her rush of to New York to find an old lover (more on this later). The obvious interpretation here is that Elena blames Izzy for her not being able to chase her dream of being a big-shot journalist and is stuck writing for a local paper. Hence the reason for the hostility.
How it’s written in the book: Elena’s story of giving up a successful career to become the “perfect” daughter, wife and mother that society expected her to be is one that is well-developed in the book. However, the relationship with her youngest daughter, Izzy, is much more complex. Although the book is written in the third person, Ng’s writing style skillfully gives us a deeper insight to the opposing perspectives of mother and daughter. From Izzy’s perspective, her mother hates her and has it out for her. A common teenage sentiment. Izzy’s truth is that she is an unwanted child who ruined her mother’s life and must endure the retribution in the form of unreasonable pressure and hostility from her mother. This is the perspective the show producers chose to run with.
From Elena’s perspective, the show leaves out a very important detail. In the book, Elena never resents Izzy for her failed career, not even secretly. She has many regrets, but having a fourth child was not one of them. We discover that Izzy was born eleven weeks prematurely. This caused Elena to be in constant fear for Izzy’s life. The doctors told her that Izzy was at risk of heart defects, seizures, mental retardation, among other deficiencies. While she turned out to be perfectly healthy, Elena spent every moment worrying about Izzy and being extra particular about every detail in her life. Of course, the more Elena tried to protect Izzy, the more Izzy resisted, rebelled and felt unfairly treated by her mother.
Infidelity
In the book, we learn about Elena’s pursuit of being a successful journalist and get small glimpses into her past life, including a journalist boyfriend, that she gave up to be a picture-perfect daughter, wife and mother. Despite all her determination and drive, her perfectionism and desire to be socially accepted ultimately gets in the way of her achieving her dream. And now she will do anything to relive the past. Anything, you say? Well…
Elena takes on a personal project to investigate Mia’s past which makes her feel like a big-shot journalist investigating a story. While in New York, she “runs in to” her old boyfriend who now works for a prestigious publishing company. In the series, the drama is turned up a notch when the innocent run in turns into something not so innocent. Elena cheating on her husband was not at all part of the storyline in the book. However, an innocent meetup with an ex was just not going to cut it for a TV drama.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation was not an issue that was brought up in the book. But since they were making it a TV series, I suppose they needed to pack in as many social issues as possible. Again, I think that this issue was not brought up in the book for the same reason that Ng could not make Mia a Black woman while writing the character. Authors can create many characters, but they still need to maintain a certain level of own-voice and write what they know. Adapting the story to the screen allowed multiple perspectives and input from several creators.
Neither Izzy nor Mia’s sexual orientation were explicitly mentioned in the book. In the series however, this was something that made Mia and Izzy’s characters even more similar. Although Mia never actually talked about her past experiences and relationship with her photography teacher/mentor, Pauline Hawthorne, it makes her mother-like bond to Izzy even stronger.
The Ending
If you made it this far into the post, you are more than likely aware of this major change that was made in the Hulu series.
Having all of the Richardson children involved in the incident at the end is quite a stretch from the book. It was supposed to be a Izzy’s way of erasing everything that was dysfunctional about her family and giving them a clean slate to start over. It was not necessarily done in rage or revenge, but in hopes to give her family a chance to let go of their past. Again, the producers of the show did not think this would be dramatic enough of a scene if only one person was involved. Or perhaps they wanted to paint a picture of the new vs. traditional generation when they had the other children join Izzy. Whatever the reason, it was quite a shock to me as a reader and bookworm that they were able to stray from the book’s plot in such a significant way.
Other small differences
- In the book, Mia is primarily a photographer. In the show, she’s an all around multi-media artist.
- Pearl and Trip hide out at one of Trip’s friend’s place in the book. In the show, they meet up in Moody’s secret hideout. Surprisingly, this is not where Moody first learns about their relationship.
- Bill has more of a presence in the show and is portrayed a mind of reason in contrast to Elena.
- Lexie writes her own college admission essay in the show, stealing Pearl’s experience with discrimination as her own. Pearl writes it for her in the book and it had nothing to do with racial/gender injustice.
- The photograph of Mia was not secretly hidden away by her as a prized possession, but displaying in an art museum. I’m not even sure if she knew it was there.
- In the book, Mia comes clean to Pearl about her history. In the show, Elena steals this thunder.
- Elena tries to pay off Bebe Chow to go away
- Bebe Chow’s entrance into her daughter’s birthday party… enough said.
