Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a
family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling
On
Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the
speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a
family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose
epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts
of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an
unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet
undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a
brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking
questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in
addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and
tenderness, On Earth We’re
Briefly Gorgeous is as
much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the
obliterating silence of not being heard.
With
stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught
between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another
without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how
to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of
many years.
Named a Best Book
of the Year by:
GQ, Kirkus
Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME, Esquire, The Washington
Post, Apple, Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker, The New York Public
Library, Elle.com, The Guardian, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub,
Entertainment Weekly, Vogue.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother
Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine and more!