New release: Loss, hope and life's second chances on display in novel 'The Emperor of Gladness'
Published: 09 May. 2025, 14:59
Updated: 11 May. 2025, 18:21
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- LEE JIAN
- [email protected]
The Emperor of Gladness
Author: Ocean Vuong
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Ocean Vuong, award-winning author of "On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous" (2019) returns with an achingly beautiful novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. One late summer evening in the postindustrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, 19-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge, 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 caregiver. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 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. Hallmarks of Ocean 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.
DB BOOKS
Author: Ocean Vuong
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Ocean Vuong, award-winning author of "On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous" (2019) returns with an achingly beautiful novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. One late summer evening in the postindustrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, 19-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge, 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 caregiver. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 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. Hallmarks of Ocean 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.
DB BOOKS
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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