On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel

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A New York Times bestseller • Nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction • Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling

New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

“A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universal…Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, the debut novel from the author of The Emperor of Gladness, 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!

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Read more from Ocean Vuong
A bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sitting in grief while being determined to survive beyond it Ocean Vuong’s debut novel about the power of telling one’s story and the obliterating silence of not being heard. Written as a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before the son was born

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 1, 2021
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525562044
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0525562047
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.01 x 0.6 x 7.65 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #3,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #3 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books) #62 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books) #220 in Literary Fiction (Books)
Customer Reviews: 4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars (22,344) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });