On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Hardcover, 246 pages

English language

Published 2019 by Jonathan Cape.

ISBN:: 978-1-78733-150-1

(2 reviews)

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 …

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.

8 editions

ralentina reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

A phantom novel

5 stars

Starting from the title, On earth we're briefly gorgeous is an exceptional, poetic book. If I had noticed ReadEra's new quoting function, I would have quoted the hell out of it.

Little Dog - Ocean himself, it would appear, is growing up gay in the suburbs of New York (New Jersey?), brought up by his Vietnamese mum and grandma, both with mental health problems. Around him, malls - where to go on a Sunday afternoon, all dressed up, to stroll and suck on two hardly-earned Godiva pralines - fields - cultivated with tobacco, handpicked by Latino workers - and opioids - relentlessly destroying Little Dog's friends, one by one.

The book is told in the form of a letter to the narrator's illiterate mother. The two stories waved into it are how Little Dog's family came from Vietnam into the US in the aftermaths of the war, and Little Dog's …

Starting from the title, On earth we're briefly gorgeous is an exceptional, poetic book. If I had noticed ReadEra's new quoting function, I would have quoted the hell out of it.

Little Dog - Ocean himself, it would appear, is growing up gay in the suburbs of New York (New Jersey?), brought up by his Vietnamese mum and grandma, both with mental health problems. Around him, malls - where to go on a Sunday afternoon, all dressed up, to stroll and suck on two hardly-earned Godiva pralines - fields - cultivated with tobacco, handpicked by Latino workers - and opioids - relentlessly destroying Little Dog's friends, one by one.

The book is told in the form of a letter to the narrator's illiterate mother. The two stories waved into it are how Little Dog's family came from Vietnam into the US in the aftermaths of the war, and Little Dog's romance with Trevor, a white boy from a messy, unloving background, ashamed of being gay, intent on proving how tough he is all the time, but capable of being really sweet to Little Dog. I liked the romance, I liked the power dynamics between the two, Trevor being white, but far from rich, and son to an alcoholic, violent father, Little Dog being Asian, more 'urban' but poor, son to a mentally unstable but loving mother.

It was a great book to start 2020.

Renata

rated it

Aug. 24, 2021

Subjects

Fiction, coming of age
Mothers and sons, fiction
Fiction, cultural heritage