Native Speaker investigates the difficulty of navigating loss alongside a loved one. More specifically, the novel looks at the immense strain that grief can put on a relationship, which is what happens after Henry and Lelia’s son, Mitt, dies at age seven. This loss isn’t the first one Henry has experienced in his life, since his mother died when he was only 11 years old. When that happened, though, his father responded very stoically by simply moving on with his life. In fact, he saw her death as a perfect time to make the major change of moving with Henry from a Korean neighborhood in New York City to a wealthy, white suburb north of the city. This method of accepting the loss and moving on from it infused his and Henry’s relationship with tension, though, since Henry wasn’t ready to pick up and leave everything behind. He thus came to resent his father for deciding to wrench him from his old life—a life that was intertwined with memories of his mother.
Given that Henry has been forced in the past to deal with loss by silently moving forward, it’s perhaps unsurprising that he later adopts this same approach in the aftermath of Mitt’s death by putting on a brave face and telling everyone that he and Lelia are doing well. Lelia, however, doesn’t want to just move on with their lives. To the contrary, she clings to the past by listening to tape recordings that Mitt made when he was still alive, even though this deeply upsets her. Their different ways of grieving make Lelia feels alone; even though Henry is still processing Mitt’s death, he doesn’t know how to grieve alongside Lelia. The result of this insular, hidden grief is that Lelia leaves him for a while, and their relationship doesn’t fully heal until Henry learns how to share his sorrow with her. In the end, they manage to bond over their loss instead of letting it drive them apart, indicating that even the most harrowing emotions can still form the basis of a strong and healthy relationship—if, that is, both people are willing to openly share their grief.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Love, Loss, and Moving On ThemeTracker
Love, Loss, and Moving On Quotes in Native Speaker
“People like me are always thinking about still having an accent,” I said. […]
“I can tell,” she said.
I asked her how.
“You speak perfectly, of course. I mean if we were talking on the phone I wouldn’t think twice.”
“You mean it’s my face.”
“No, it’s not that,” she answered. […] “Your face is part of the equation, but not in the way you’re thinking. You look like someone listening to himself. You pay attention to what you’re doing. If I had to guess, you’re not a native speaker. Say something.”
I know over the years my father and his friends got together less and less. Certainly, after my mother died, he didn’t seem to want to go to the gatherings anymore. But it wasn’t just him. They all got busier and wealthier and lived farther and farther apart. Like us, their families moved to big houses with big yards to tend on weekends, they owned fancy cars that needed washing and waxing. They joined their own neighborhood pool and tennis clubs and were making drinking friends with Americans. […] And in the end my father no longer belonged to any ggeh, he complained about all the disgraceful troubles that were now cropping up, people not paying on time or leaving too soon after their turn getting the money. In America, he said, it’s even hard to stay Korean.
“Just think about it. You haven’t said his name more than four or five times since it happened. You haven’t said his name tonight. Maybe you’ve talked all this time with Jack about him, maybe you say his name in your sleep, but we’ve never really talked about it, we haven’t really come right out together and said it, really named what happened for what it was.”
[…]
“It was a terrible accident.”
“An accident?” she cried, nearly hollering. She covered her mouth. Her voice was breaking. “How can you say it was an accident? We haven’t treated it like one. Not for a second. Look at us. Sweetie, can’t you see, when your baby dies it’s never an accident. […]”
I took her and we lay down on the carpet. Before I could do anything else to stop myself I told her his name. John Kwang. I could almost see her turning the words inside her head. Of course she knew who he was, that he was Korean. He was appearing on the broadcasts almost nightly because of the boycotts. She didn’t say anything, though, and I could see that she was trying her very best to stay quiet, to think around the notion for a moment instead of steaming right through it. Ten years with me and now she was the one with the ready method. […] And now her voice brooking in my ear, in a voice I hardly recognized. “You just say what you want. Please say what you want.”
“If I had heard that one redheaded kid say even one funny word to Mitt! God! I would have punched his fucking lights out! I would have made him scream!” Her chest bucks, and she almost starts to cry, strangely, as if she’s frightened herself with a memory that isn’t true.
And I think she’s saying it perfectly, just like she should. When you’re too careful you can’t say anything. You can’t imagine the play of the words in your head. You can’t hear them, and they all sound like they belong to somebody else.
“[…] He worked for me for nothing, the same as you. For nothing, except for what I might show him about our life, what is possible for people like us. I thought this is what he wanted. Was I crazy? I would have given him anything in my power. But he was betraying us, Henry. Betraying everything we were doing. […] I loved him, Henry, I grieve for him, but he was disloyal, the most terrible thing, a traitor.”
Now, she calls out each one as best as she can, taking care of every last pitch and accent, and I hear her speaking a dozen lovely and native languages, calling all the difficult names of who we are.
