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1-Page Summary of Everything I Never Told You
Overall Summary
The book opens in 1977. Lydia Lee is missing, and her family doesn’t know what happened to her. Marilyn goes up to Lydia’s room looking for her, but she isn’t there. Nath and Hannah leave for school while Marilyn worries about what might have happened to Lydia. Meanwhile James is at his office at Middlewood College unaware of the situation going on with his wife and children. He talks with one of his graduate students named Louisa Chen who is teaching a class that day as well as Stanley Hewitt who he dislikes very much due to their different views on history.
Police officers tell the Lees that teenagers run away from home often because they are angry with their parents. In most cases, teens come back within 24 hours. The police ask about an incident 11 years ago when Marilyn went missing for a day, but James quickly dismisses this as a “miscommunication.” He and Marilyn write down a list of Lydia’s friends and ask them if they know where she is. Nath says nothing; he knows that the girls on the list aren’t actually close to Lydia except for her neighbor Jack Wolff who he strongly dislikes. Meanwhile, Hannah keeps quiet about having seen Lydia walk across the front lawn away from her house at 2am the previous night. A passerby notices there is a rowboat floating in Lake Michigan near Lee’s street and calls 911. When asked by police if his daughter can swim, James tells them she cannot swim; two days later, Lydia’s body is found in Lake Michigan
The story takes place in 1955. Marilyn is an excellent student who dreams of becoming a doctor, but faces sexist opposition from her male peers and professors. Her mother Doris Walker is a traditional woman who has never left Virginia in her life. One day, the two go to a new class called “The Cowboy in American Culture.” The teacher is James Lee, the first Asian-American person that Marilyn has ever seen. After his first lecture, she immediately goes to him for help with understanding what he was talking about. They begin dating right away because they have so much chemistry together and fall deeply in love with each other as well as their unborn child (Marilyn’s pregnancy). However, one day when they are getting married, Doris tells Marilyn that it isn’t right for them to be together and never speaks to her again after this incident.
The Lees attended Lydia’s funeral. Nath aggressively questioned Jack about her death and was scolded by James for being inappropriate. The narrator mentions that Janet leaves Jack alone a lot, which he uses to take the virginity of girls at his school. Later in the day, Nath saw that police were questioning Jack and Janet, so he spied on their conversation. During this time, James had gone to his office to read Lydia’s autopsy report but Louisa knocked on his door while there. He told her about how upset he was over Lydia’s death and she offered him lunch at her apartment where they immediately slept together after which James fell asleep soundly for the first time since Lydia died.
The story takes place in the past, when Lydia was five years old and Hannah wasn’t born yet. Marilyn goes to a party at Middlewood College where she meets Tom Lawson, a professor of chemistry. He tells her he’d be happy to hire her as long as James doesn’t mind. That spring, Marilyn learns that Doris has died and makes plans to leave home without telling anyone why or how she’s leaving. She packs up all of Doris’ belongings except for one thing: her Betty Crocker cookbook which contains recipes on keeping your household happy and harmonious. Meanwhile, Nath swims at the YMCA with his father but is humiliated by other kids who call him racist names and make fun of him because he’s different from them. After this incident, Marilyn decides to leave home without explaining anything because she can’t take it anymore after seeing what life is really like for people like Doris who are marginalized by society.
