Authors:

  • Ocean Vuong
Cover of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuongs debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth Were 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 familys 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.

Citations

Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. New York: Penguin Press, 2019.