On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel

Author:
Series: Epistolary novels for your every mood
Publisher: Penguin Press
Publication Year: 2019
ASIN: 0525562028
ISBN: 0525562028

In this luminous debut about family and first love, a gay Vietnamese immigrant man writes his mother a letter in which he reveals their painful family history and gives her insights about his own life. His mother doesn't know how to read but the letter is a window for her to better understand him, if she so chooses. With evocative prose, Vuong reminds us of the power in telling your own story, especially when your voice was previously silenced.

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About the Book

Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Oprah.com, Huffington Post, The A.V. Club, Nylon, The Week, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and more

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.

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