When Marilyn learns she is pregnant with Hannah, she leaves school in Toledo and returns home. James is left alone with his children, and his insecurities surrounding his race, identity, and relationship are exacerbated. That summer, she abandons her family and moves, unannounced, to Toledo, Ohio. When Marilyn’s mother passes away unexpectedly, Marilyn vows to resume her studies. While raising her two young children, Marilyn becomes the housewife that her mother always wanted her to be. After James is rejected from a teaching position at Harvard, the family moves to Middlewood, Ohio.Īfter Nath’s birth, Marilyn becomes pregnant again with Lydia. Marilyn’s decision to drop out of college haunts her for the rest of her life.
The two begin to have a relationship, and Marilyn is forced to drop out of class when she becomes pregnant with Nath. While in enrolled in a history class, Marilyn falls in love with her professor, James Lee. Marilyn has always dreamed of being a doctor, and her enrollment at Radcliffe College is met with disgust by her mother, a home-ec teacher at the local high school. The Lee family is comprised of Marilyn, a Caucasian woman from Virginia, and James, a first-generation Chinese immigrant. These flashbacks provide context for Lydia’s emotional condition prior to her death. The novel then begins to switch to a series of flashbacks.
Although Lydia gave the impression that she was well-adjusted in her academic and social life, she was actually dealing with a great amount of pressure and insecurity. While the police investigate the criminal nature of Lydia’s death, Lydia’s parents, James and Marilyn Lee, begin to realize that they did not know the true identity of their daughter. After a few days, Lydia’s lifeless body is found in the town’s lake. On May 3, 1977, Lydia Lee does not show up at the breakfast table.
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