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The Emperor of Gladness
Not yet published
Expected 13 May 25Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted 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 him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.
Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.
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 him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.
Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.
416 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication May 13, 2025
96 people are currently reading
57.9k people want to read
About the author
Ocean Vuong
26 books14.3k followersOcean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the American Book Award and the MacArthur “Genius Grant," he has also worked as a line cook, tobacco harvester, nursing home volunteer, and fast-food server, the latter becoming inspiration for The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts and New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
Want to read
April 11, 2025so 2025 is a year for crying then, yeah?
Want to read
March 9, 2025new ocean vuong novel? i used to pray for times like these
Want to read
March 27, 2025ready for my soul to break open yet again....
Shelved as 'unreleased'
October 11, 2024PREMISE JUST DROPPED??????? ocean vuong collect all my tears!!!
Want to read
December 16, 2024Oh I am SO excited to sob along to this
Want to read
April 8, 2025i’m ready to be destroyed again. almost one more month!! once i get my hands on this, i already know i will eat up those 416 pages in under 24 hours
March 29, 2025
vlog to come..
small people.
small places.
sometimes the quietest of moments can be the most devastating.
vuong returns with loose prose with themes of labor and consumption to make sense of a capitalist america by way of unlikely people and unlikely connections. harmony exists in unseen parts of us soil and here it is like a little postcard..
small people.
small places.
sometimes the quietest of moments can be the most devastating.
vuong returns with loose prose with themes of labor and consumption to make sense of a capitalist america by way of unlikely people and unlikely connections. harmony exists in unseen parts of us soil and here it is like a little postcard..
Want to read
January 7, 2025This is very exciting, can't wait on the prose follow-up to On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong!
Priority list for 2025! 🤩
Priority list for 2025! 🤩
February 3, 2025
Hai, the protagonist of Ocean Vuong's sophomore novel, wants to write a book some day, one that safely holds all of his favourite things. He likely never will, caught amidst the drudgery of living, and making a living, at the superfrayed edges of American society. But Vuong can, and The Emperor of Gladness is his attempt at preserving Hai's memories and experiences against the erasure that awaits them, against the descent into oblivion despite which his people – poor, broken, infirm and neglected – continue to survive.
We first meet Hai teetering at the edge of a bridge in the backwaters of East Gladness, Connecticut, ashamed to return home to his mother, when he is accosted by an elderly woman. Grazina is alone and battling dementia, but in that moment she throws him a lifeline, and Hai agrees to keep on as her caretaker in exchange for food and shelter. The unlikely pair soon form a tender, life-altering bond, one that changes Hai's relationship with his himself, his family, and a post-industrial community beset by invisiblised crises.
This is a thematically complex novel: Vuong here refracts critiques of of labour, consumption, enforced precarity, late capitalism and the American empire against a study of human connection, using the space created by friendship and found family to fold the margins into the centre and remind us of who and what is left behind in our scramble for infinite growth and economic progress. His characters are people who have been written-off from the American dream: fast food chain gig workers, drug addicts, poor immigrants, the disabled and the elderly, none of whom are afforded a place in the veneered world they are enlisted to maintain. Though these connections are only transient – though these characters' very lives and livelihoods are rendered disposable by the systems that govern them – Vuong here tries capturing glimpses of the beauty they create despite a pervasive social, political, and existential stasis.
The trajectories of Vuong's characters intersect top with broader themes of memory and war: Grazina's dementia often transports her back to her fraught youth, while Hai contends with his in the present – East Gladness is a nowhereland stricken with a poverty-enforced drug crisis, an insidious war taking prisoners in his neck of the woods. Hai's cousin, Sony, meanwhile, finds solace and escape in the memorialisation of a different war, one whose seemingly distant spectre continues to haunt the state of their nation. Amidst these scenarios of conflict and forgetting, the author invites readers to pay attention to what draws his characters to each other and how it gives them the strength to keep going.
Though the book is brilliant in scope – expansive and intimate at once – something about it doesn't quite work. Vuong's prose, poetic, diaphanous and carefully cultivated elsewhere, seems here to have gome uncontrollably florid in a way that highlights rather than cushions the flaws of his storytelling. There are several points here – moments intended to be light, to afford grace and complexity to lives otherwise glossed over – where the writing goes from being the vehicle of narration to narrative itself, presenting itself such that its own form is difficult to look past; there are also sections that could be funny, or heartwarming, but which limit themselves in their corniness. And then the loose tiles in the floor – for instance, the way mother and son never run into each other despite coexisting in the same small town – make the whole feel somewhat unbalanced and uneven, somewhat rushed, a little inattentive in its attentiveness.
I'm certain many readers will wholeheartedly love The Emperor of Gladness. I too loved the premise and believed in the promise of it, but in the end there was no crossing over into what it attempted to create and couldn't quite deliver.
We first meet Hai teetering at the edge of a bridge in the backwaters of East Gladness, Connecticut, ashamed to return home to his mother, when he is accosted by an elderly woman. Grazina is alone and battling dementia, but in that moment she throws him a lifeline, and Hai agrees to keep on as her caretaker in exchange for food and shelter. The unlikely pair soon form a tender, life-altering bond, one that changes Hai's relationship with his himself, his family, and a post-industrial community beset by invisiblised crises.
This is a thematically complex novel: Vuong here refracts critiques of of labour, consumption, enforced precarity, late capitalism and the American empire against a study of human connection, using the space created by friendship and found family to fold the margins into the centre and remind us of who and what is left behind in our scramble for infinite growth and economic progress. His characters are people who have been written-off from the American dream: fast food chain gig workers, drug addicts, poor immigrants, the disabled and the elderly, none of whom are afforded a place in the veneered world they are enlisted to maintain. Though these connections are only transient – though these characters' very lives and livelihoods are rendered disposable by the systems that govern them – Vuong here tries capturing glimpses of the beauty they create despite a pervasive social, political, and existential stasis.
The trajectories of Vuong's characters intersect top with broader themes of memory and war: Grazina's dementia often transports her back to her fraught youth, while Hai contends with his in the present – East Gladness is a nowhereland stricken with a poverty-enforced drug crisis, an insidious war taking prisoners in his neck of the woods. Hai's cousin, Sony, meanwhile, finds solace and escape in the memorialisation of a different war, one whose seemingly distant spectre continues to haunt the state of their nation. Amidst these scenarios of conflict and forgetting, the author invites readers to pay attention to what draws his characters to each other and how it gives them the strength to keep going.
Though the book is brilliant in scope – expansive and intimate at once – something about it doesn't quite work. Vuong's prose, poetic, diaphanous and carefully cultivated elsewhere, seems here to have gome uncontrollably florid in a way that highlights rather than cushions the flaws of his storytelling. There are several points here – moments intended to be light, to afford grace and complexity to lives otherwise glossed over – where the writing goes from being the vehicle of narration to narrative itself, presenting itself such that its own form is difficult to look past; there are also sections that could be funny, or heartwarming, but which limit themselves in their corniness. And then the loose tiles in the floor – for instance, the way mother and son never run into each other despite coexisting in the same small town – make the whole feel somewhat unbalanced and uneven, somewhat rushed, a little inattentive in its attentiveness.
I'm certain many readers will wholeheartedly love The Emperor of Gladness. I too loved the premise and believed in the promise of it, but in the end there was no crossing over into what it attempted to create and couldn't quite deliver.
Want to read
December 9, 2024dare i say it.... worst vuong cover to date
February 2, 2025
Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness is an exquisitely crafted novel that masterfully intertwines despair and hope, forming a profound exploration of human resilience, chosen family, and the unyielding desire for connection amidst chaos. Set against the backdrop of East Gladness, Connecticut, the story encapsulates nine transformative months in the life of Hai, a nineteen-year-old teetering on the brink of despair, and Grazina, an elderly widow battling dementia. Together, they forge an unlikely but transformative bond that examines the essence of existence, survival, and the elusive promise of second chances.
A World Rendered in Grit and Grace
Vuong’s hallmark—his unparalleled ability to twin the grit of reality with poetic grace—is vividly evident. From the rain-slicked streets of East Gladness to the dimly lit interiors of Grazina’s cluttered house, Vuong paints a setting brimming with melancholic beauty. The town itself becomes a living character, embodying the decline and resilience of those who inhabit its fringes. Vuong’s prose shimmers with descriptions that blend the tactile with the transcendent:
"The train tracks blaze so hot the rubber on your soles would melt if you walked on them for more than a minute...
... everything green grows as if in retribution for the barren, cauterized winter..."
Such imagery is not merely ornamental but integral, embedding the reader into the visceral experience of East Gladness.
Plot: The Fragility and Strength of Connection
The story opens on a harrowing note: Hai stands on King Phillip’s bridge, contemplating ending his life. A voice—sharp, urgent, and strangely grounding—interrupts his descent. It belongs to Grazina, a woman at once fierce and fragile, who inadvertently offers Hai a lifeline. This pivotal moment sets the tone for a narrative steeped in the interplay of isolation and kinship.
Over the following months, Hai becomes Grazina’s caretaker, stepping into her fragmented world of fading memories and stubborn independence. Their relationship is far from conventional but is imbued with moments of tenderness and raw honesty. Grazina’s sharp wit and Hai’s quiet introspection create a dynamic that oscillates between humor and heartbreak. As they navigate their respective traumas, their shared vulnerability fosters a profound, if unlikely, connection.
The plot’s trajectory, while seemingly understated, resonates deeply. Through everyday rituals—sharing meals, navigating grocery store aisles, or crushing bread rolls in the mud—Vuong reveals the monumental weight of the mundane. Hai’s journey toward self-forgiveness and Grazina’s battle to retain her identity despite the erasure of dementia form the emotional core of the story.
Characterization: Hauntingly Human
Vuong excels in crafting characters that feel achingly real. Hai is a compelling protagonist, his internal battles rendered with sensitivity and depth. His trauma—rooted in familial estrangement and the pervasive hopelessness of his environment—is palpable. Yet, he is not defined solely by his pain. His growth, catalyzed by his relationship with Grazina, is a testament to the redemptive power of human connection.
Grazina, too, is a marvel. Her oscillation between lucidity and confusion mirrors the broader themes of the novel: the fragility of memory, the inevitability of decline, and the resilience of the human spirit. Her anecdotes—alternately tragic and hilarious—provide glimpses into a life lived with fierce independence. Her relationship with Hai underscores the novel’s assertion that family is not always tied by blood but by the bonds we choose to nurture.
Themes: Love, Labor, and Loneliness
At its heart, The Emperor of Gladness is a meditation on the themes of love, labor, and loneliness. Vuong examines the societal structures that marginalize individuals like Hai and Grazina, exploring how these forces shape their lives. The novel’s title, drawn from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Wallace Stevens’s poetry, underscores its existential inquiry: What does it mean to live a good life? And is beauty still possible within the confines of static, muted existence?
Vuong’s exploration of memory is particularly poignant. Grazina’s dementia serves as a metaphor for the collective forgetting that plagues society. Through her, Vuong asks: Is a life you can no longer remember still worth living? This theme reverberates through Hai’s own reckoning with his past, suggesting that growth is possible even without dramatic change.
Writing Style: Poetic Precision
Vuong’s prose is nothing short of masterful. He wields language with a precision that cuts to the bone, each sentence layered with meaning. His ability to convey complex emotions through deceptively simple phrases is unparalleled. For instance, Hai’s reflection on his bond with Grazina:
“How strange, to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found in here of all places, at the end of a road by a toxic river.”
The novel’s structure, while linear, is punctuated by vignettes and moments of introspection that enrich the narrative. Vuong’s poetic background shines through in these passages, elevating the novel beyond a conventional literary fiction framework.
Critiques: An Intimate Scope
While The Emperor of Gladness is a triumph in many respects, it may not resonate equally with all readers. Its intimate focus on character over plot might feel meandering to those expecting a more traditionally structured narrative. Additionally, Vuong’s densely poetic style, while beautiful, occasionally risks overshadowing the story’s emotional clarity.
Some secondary characters, though vividly drawn, feel underutilized. The glimpses of East Gladness’s other inhabitants hint at a broader social tapestry that remains largely unexplored. Expanding on these peripheral narratives might have enriched the novel’s examination of community and belonging.
Final Thoughts
The Emperor of Gladness is a work of profound beauty and quiet strength. Having received an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review, I can attest that Ocean Vuong has crafted a novel that lingers long after the final page, its characters and questions haunting the reader’s thoughts. While it demands patience and introspection, the rewards are manifold for those willing to engage with its depths.
Ultimately, this is a novel about second chances—those we give to others and, perhaps more crucially, those we offer ourselves. In an era marked by division and despair, Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness is a reminder of the fragile yet transformative power of connection and the enduring pursuit of joy amid the static.
A World Rendered in Grit and Grace
Vuong’s hallmark—his unparalleled ability to twin the grit of reality with poetic grace—is vividly evident. From the rain-slicked streets of East Gladness to the dimly lit interiors of Grazina’s cluttered house, Vuong paints a setting brimming with melancholic beauty. The town itself becomes a living character, embodying the decline and resilience of those who inhabit its fringes. Vuong’s prose shimmers with descriptions that blend the tactile with the transcendent:
"The train tracks blaze so hot the rubber on your soles would melt if you walked on them for more than a minute...
... everything green grows as if in retribution for the barren, cauterized winter..."
Such imagery is not merely ornamental but integral, embedding the reader into the visceral experience of East Gladness.
Plot: The Fragility and Strength of Connection
The story opens on a harrowing note: Hai stands on King Phillip’s bridge, contemplating ending his life. A voice—sharp, urgent, and strangely grounding—interrupts his descent. It belongs to Grazina, a woman at once fierce and fragile, who inadvertently offers Hai a lifeline. This pivotal moment sets the tone for a narrative steeped in the interplay of isolation and kinship.
Over the following months, Hai becomes Grazina’s caretaker, stepping into her fragmented world of fading memories and stubborn independence. Their relationship is far from conventional but is imbued with moments of tenderness and raw honesty. Grazina’s sharp wit and Hai’s quiet introspection create a dynamic that oscillates between humor and heartbreak. As they navigate their respective traumas, their shared vulnerability fosters a profound, if unlikely, connection.
The plot’s trajectory, while seemingly understated, resonates deeply. Through everyday rituals—sharing meals, navigating grocery store aisles, or crushing bread rolls in the mud—Vuong reveals the monumental weight of the mundane. Hai’s journey toward self-forgiveness and Grazina’s battle to retain her identity despite the erasure of dementia form the emotional core of the story.
Characterization: Hauntingly Human
Vuong excels in crafting characters that feel achingly real. Hai is a compelling protagonist, his internal battles rendered with sensitivity and depth. His trauma—rooted in familial estrangement and the pervasive hopelessness of his environment—is palpable. Yet, he is not defined solely by his pain. His growth, catalyzed by his relationship with Grazina, is a testament to the redemptive power of human connection.
Grazina, too, is a marvel. Her oscillation between lucidity and confusion mirrors the broader themes of the novel: the fragility of memory, the inevitability of decline, and the resilience of the human spirit. Her anecdotes—alternately tragic and hilarious—provide glimpses into a life lived with fierce independence. Her relationship with Hai underscores the novel’s assertion that family is not always tied by blood but by the bonds we choose to nurture.
Themes: Love, Labor, and Loneliness
At its heart, The Emperor of Gladness is a meditation on the themes of love, labor, and loneliness. Vuong examines the societal structures that marginalize individuals like Hai and Grazina, exploring how these forces shape their lives. The novel’s title, drawn from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Wallace Stevens’s poetry, underscores its existential inquiry: What does it mean to live a good life? And is beauty still possible within the confines of static, muted existence?
Vuong’s exploration of memory is particularly poignant. Grazina’s dementia serves as a metaphor for the collective forgetting that plagues society. Through her, Vuong asks: Is a life you can no longer remember still worth living? This theme reverberates through Hai’s own reckoning with his past, suggesting that growth is possible even without dramatic change.
Writing Style: Poetic Precision
Vuong’s prose is nothing short of masterful. He wields language with a precision that cuts to the bone, each sentence layered with meaning. His ability to convey complex emotions through deceptively simple phrases is unparalleled. For instance, Hai’s reflection on his bond with Grazina:
“How strange, to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found in here of all places, at the end of a road by a toxic river.”
The novel’s structure, while linear, is punctuated by vignettes and moments of introspection that enrich the narrative. Vuong’s poetic background shines through in these passages, elevating the novel beyond a conventional literary fiction framework.
Critiques: An Intimate Scope
While The Emperor of Gladness is a triumph in many respects, it may not resonate equally with all readers. Its intimate focus on character over plot might feel meandering to those expecting a more traditionally structured narrative. Additionally, Vuong’s densely poetic style, while beautiful, occasionally risks overshadowing the story’s emotional clarity.
Some secondary characters, though vividly drawn, feel underutilized. The glimpses of East Gladness’s other inhabitants hint at a broader social tapestry that remains largely unexplored. Expanding on these peripheral narratives might have enriched the novel’s examination of community and belonging.
Final Thoughts
The Emperor of Gladness is a work of profound beauty and quiet strength. Having received an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review, I can attest that Ocean Vuong has crafted a novel that lingers long after the final page, its characters and questions haunting the reader’s thoughts. While it demands patience and introspection, the rewards are manifold for those willing to engage with its depths.
Ultimately, this is a novel about second chances—those we give to others and, perhaps more crucially, those we offer ourselves. In an era marked by division and despair, Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness is a reminder of the fragile yet transformative power of connection and the enduring pursuit of joy amid the static.
April 2, 2025
Fuck a hot girl summer, it's looking like depressing liggabit spring 😔
February 28, 2025
I have never read anything by Vuong prior to this novel. WOW! Clearly a poet. His writing is beautiful. A very hard story about a 19yr old boy who is about to take his life only to hear the shouting voice of an 87 year old woman with dementia telling him to get down from the bridge. Thus this unimaginable story of Hai and Grazina begins. Stunning how beautifully a story can be written when that story is filled with darkness, despair, suicide, dementia, death, mental health issues etc. The friendships realized are heartfelt. The HomeMarket characters will have you laugh and have you cry. You will love each of them. A brilliant story, so touchingly written. It’s a MUST READ when it publishes May 13!!! Simply stunning.
February 15, 2025
I’m a big fan of Vuong’s writing. Granted, this is my first of his, but seeing how he crafts meaning into sentences, passion subtly into characters. There a transcendent intention that’s a constant. The words are more than words. The story more than a story.
So much emotion and shifting, nuanced tonalities. The story was beautiful and strong while balancing moments of absurdism with sweeping, oceanic descriptors of life. I’m so glad I read this book and got to experience Vuong. His craft and expertise is among the greats in literature.
So much emotion and shifting, nuanced tonalities. The story was beautiful and strong while balancing moments of absurdism with sweeping, oceanic descriptors of life. I’m so glad I read this book and got to experience Vuong. His craft and expertise is among the greats in literature.
February 7, 2025
I truly cannot stop thinking about this book -- probably won't stop for a long time. Ocean Vuong’s long anticipated sophomore novel exceeded my already high expectations. While a poignant novel with hauntingly elegant prose was to be expected from Vuong, the dark humor and witty, fast-paced dialogue of The Emperor of Gladness created a stunningly hopeful novel that centers community, place, and the complexities of memory. Despite heavy subject matter, Vuong successfully constructs an intimately vibrant atmosphere that stays with you long after finishing the novel.
February 10, 2025
I just don’t think Ocean Vuong is capable of writing a bad book. Haven’t fallen in love with fictional characters this hard in a very long time, I was immersed from the very first page.
Want to read
October 10, 2024El libro más esperado de 2025.
Estaré insoportable.
Primer aviso.
Estaré insoportable.
Primer aviso.
April 2, 2025
'the emperor of gladness' is just proof that you actually can form your own family at a minimum wage job that consists of coworkers that'll literally go to the ends of the earth for you simply because you care about each other. oh WOW. humans are so full of love and hurt and snarky jokes and nostalgia and cornbread secret recipes and this book is a testament to exactly that. ocean vuong had me laughing hysterically (and through some tears) for an entire 397 pages
a thousand thank you's to penguin press for an early reading copy of this release <3
a thousand thank you's to penguin press for an early reading copy of this release <3
Read
January 20, 2025Overall, I really enjoyed this one. There were moments where the book was kind of corny, but the writing was good, and it was nice to read something with a fair amount of hope and positivity to it. A much-needed novel for the times we're living in, even if it's not perfect. Book clubs will eat this one up.
February 12, 2025
Ocean is able to make the stark and ugly truths of this world so beautiful. A wonderful, sad, incredibly riveting character study.
January 29, 2025
I have read Ocean’s debut novel and some of his poetry….but this book will catapult him into the stratosphere! It throughly wrecked me. You will LOVE all the characters in this found family. The plot line and backstory..amazing. And the writing…so PASSIONATE! This will be hands-down my favorite book of 2025.
Want to read
February 28, 2025gorgeous cover + striking title = my undivided attention
Want to read
January 1, 2025One of my most anticipated books this year!
Want to read
February 4, 2025Jeg ved det her bliver en 5 star read allerede
Want to read
November 4, 2024And nobody told me about this??? RUDE!!
Want to read
January 3, 2025i will read everything this person writes, if he has 100 fans i am one of them, if he has 1 fan that is me, if he has no fans it is because i died
January 5, 2025
4.5 rounded up
March 22, 2025
Nineteen-year-old Hai is about to jump from a bridge when he is stopped by an eighty-two-year-old lady (Grazina) from across the river. Succumbing to dementia, he quickly becomes her caretaker.
Through unexpected friendships and the special relationship with an elderly widow, Vuong reaches another level of warmth and comfort, which found family vibes and second chance is at the core of this novel. There are war trauma and slice-of-life embedded in the narrative, while Vuong crafts characters whose ghosts in their souls make them relatable in some way. When reality blends with imagination and past with present, it can feel disorienting at times, however isn't this how it usually works?
This book is about taking care of broken people - like the characters or a fraction of us - and about finding light and peace amidst loss and sufferings. What are the stories we tell ourselves to survive that allows us to grasp hope? Beyond the small joys, the story's strength also relies on the social commentary, subtle while scathing.
THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS is a big-hearted novel, a small portion of the charity of the world that one often needs. If you're into a slow burn and vague plot full of heart, this might work for you.
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - Penguin Press . All opinions are my own ]
Through unexpected friendships and the special relationship with an elderly widow, Vuong reaches another level of warmth and comfort, which found family vibes and second chance is at the core of this novel. There are war trauma and slice-of-life embedded in the narrative, while Vuong crafts characters whose ghosts in their souls make them relatable in some way. When reality blends with imagination and past with present, it can feel disorienting at times, however isn't this how it usually works?
This book is about taking care of broken people - like the characters or a fraction of us - and about finding light and peace amidst loss and sufferings. What are the stories we tell ourselves to survive that allows us to grasp hope? Beyond the small joys, the story's strength also relies on the social commentary, subtle while scathing.
THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS is a big-hearted novel, a small portion of the charity of the world that one often needs. If you're into a slow burn and vague plot full of heart, this might work for you.
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - Penguin Press . All opinions are my own ]
March 18, 2025
Ocean Vuong is a legend. I firmly believe he is one of the greatest writers to come in my lifetime. This novel is going to be one of the biggest titles of 2025. Ocean has an absolute uncanny ability to use words to worm their way directly into our hearts and crack us open to the world, every single time. The story begins with Hai, our nineteen year old protagonist, balanced atop King Phillip’s bridge teetering on the decision to jump. To live or not. His contemplation of his life in East Gladness, Connecticut and of his mother are interrupted by a shrill voice belonging to Grazina. An elderly Lithuanian woman battling dementia is just the lifeline Hai didn’t know he needed. He moves in as a caretaker and they quickly develop a bond that transcends blood, memory, and time itself. In his new home, Hai steps back into time beside Grazina, marching to invisible drumbeats in WWII battling her dementia as a team, as much as possible. After moving in, he gets a job at a local restaurant alongside his cousin Sony. The characters that make up the restaurant and eventually, Hai’s found family are so vivid that I swear they’ll stop in the store themselves someday soon.
At its heart, this is a book of second chances. Ocean Vuong never fails to capture the very essence of what the experience of being human is: it is hardship, confusion, loneliness, anger, immense grief, and darkness. It is also the sun coming up in the morning. It is a moment of warmth bright enough to get you through a dark night. It is laughter, it is friendship, it is forgiveness, it is growth, step by step, moving forward every single day. It is a single person reaching out to another to say, “grab onto me for a while, I’ve got you”. Get ready to feel ALL the feelings. Have someone ready to hug you and offer chocolate or whatever your preferred snack is immediately after! I am kicking and squealing with excitement for this one, out in May!
At its heart, this is a book of second chances. Ocean Vuong never fails to capture the very essence of what the experience of being human is: it is hardship, confusion, loneliness, anger, immense grief, and darkness. It is also the sun coming up in the morning. It is a moment of warmth bright enough to get you through a dark night. It is laughter, it is friendship, it is forgiveness, it is growth, step by step, moving forward every single day. It is a single person reaching out to another to say, “grab onto me for a while, I’ve got you”. Get ready to feel ALL the feelings. Have someone ready to hug you and offer chocolate or whatever your preferred snack is immediately after! I am kicking and squealing with excitement for this one, out in May!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews