num_pages: 246
description: 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.
language: English
title: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
publisher: Penguin Press