On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
A Novel
Ocean Vuong
This powerful debut novel from poet Ocean Vuong is a letter from a son to his illiterate mother. It unearths a family's history, rooted in Vietnam, and explores fraught love, race, class, and masculinity in America. It asks urgent questions about addiction, trauma, healing, and telling one's own story. With stunning urgency and grace, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous examines how to survive and find joy in disparate worlds, without forsaking who we are. A must-read debut novel.
Recommendations
2019-06-03T00:00:00.000Z
Vuong uses language to conjure wholeness from a situation that language has already broken, and will continue to break; loss and survival are always twinned. The structural hallmarks of Vuong’s poetry—his skill with elision, juxtaposition, and sequencing—shape the novel. – source2019-10-27T17:02:46.000Z
2. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: wow, what a book. Intense, powerful, and very, very raw. Beautifully written and quintessentially human. – source