“The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. Epic in its sweep, the novel also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Hai and Grazina are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world.” —Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island and Brooklyn
“A masterwork.” —Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Family Meal Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces...
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“The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. Epic in its sweep, the novel also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Hai and Grazina are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world.” —Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island and Brooklyn“A masterwork.” —Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Family Meal
Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces...