Some books aren’t so much reading as they are listening to what the author is putting on the page. This was gorgeous and painful and gorgeous.
Reviewed by jamiereadthis on
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- 6 June, 2019: Reviewed
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong
**THE SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**
**WINNER OF THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD 2020**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2020**
Brilliant, heart-breaking, tender, and highly original – poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to 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 epicentre 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 the American moment, immersed as it is 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.
**A FINALIST FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD 2020**
‘This romantic, lusciously written debut lingers over kisses’ The Times
‘So very full of beauty and power. Also, grace’ Tommy Orange, Observer
‘A magical synthesis of memoir, fiction and poetry’ Joyce Carol Oates, TLS