On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel Hardcover – June 4, 2019

This book is exquisite. The eb and flow of Oceans writing is deeply stirring and truly "gorgeous". Yes, he is a poet. Expresses like a poet, the world reverberates for him as with the greatest poets. His story is woven through this book in its semi-autobiographical form. It is intense. It is heartbreakingly painfully and also utterly beautiful. Like James Baldwin- a great soul and a one in a million writer. It is a true classic.

I was intrigued and found your books on Amazon. This book is very passionate, at times confusing but always as honest and humble as the author can be. I prize honesty and humility as much as I do integrity. I gained a little more understanding of Vietnamese culture. A little.

Ocean Vuong'a poetic and profound writing leaves a lasting impression. His insights into humanity as a whole, and the working class immigrant experience in particular, make this book incredibly relevant to our time. Read this book.

This novel is deeply personal, written by an extremely sensitive man. I heard Vuong being interviewed by the NYT and I was so taken with his emotion that I wanted to read the book.Alas, this novel is not for me. Although its themes of war, immigration, coming of age, and death are very compelling and well written, there was graphic gay sex and many obscene words that, to my mind, do not make this book recommendable or to be lauded.Also, the storyline is not linear and with no division of different times and places, I was confused which made the book difficult to understand. Plus, the similes just don’t make sense although I realize that this narrative is more like poetry.Actually, the last 25 pages are the best.For the reasons listed above, I had to give this book only 3 stars.

The pain of the Vietnam War left splinters all across the globe—at the scale of bothwar-torn countries and broken households. In the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, poet Ocean Vuong details the years of physical abuse endured from a mother suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after fleeing her homeland and the intense guerilla warfare associated with it. The United State’s involvement in the Vietnam War comes a result of a vain attempt to ‘contain’ communism within Southeast Asia. Vietnam was torn into two separate entities; one of which supported the Soviet cause and the other backed by the military giant that is the United States. Vuong beautifully illustrates the racialized and politicized distributions of ‘controlled’ space and power over nature, while also including the achingly painful caveat of war time abuse and the devastating effects of the struggle for materialistic control of land.One of the most powerful aspects of this piece of work is its showcase of the intersectionality between race, gender, and power. In Part 1, Vuong details the story of his grandmother, a young Vietnamese woman who flees an arranged marriage and is sexually assaulted by an American soldier, producing a ‘white-passing’ child. The woman, self-named to be Lan, is approached by two American soldiers on the street, both of which are noticeably intoxicated and carrying massive M-16s. Lan urinates on herself, standing “on the life-sized period of her own sentence, alive” thanks to the paleness of her daughter. This memory from Vuong’s grandmother is striking as it points back to an argument made by researcher Donna Haraway regarding feminist political ecology. The earth, with an “independent sense of humor, is its own active subject in the propagation of gender and social norms. Lan’s ability as a woman to reproduce protected her from imminent death, pointing to an argument made by feminist poltical ecologist Sharlene Mollett which describes that as humans, we are historically entered into heavily racialized and sexualized relationships, so there is no way to properly separate these traits as completely isolated from the other. The binary hierarchy that existed within this confrontation was ultimately created by the differing characteristics that nature and culture have created to categorize men and women into separate social classes, with regard to race as well.Vuong also successfully illustrates the lack of fairly paid domestic labor done by women of color. His mother, Rose, works in a nail salon where the violent, noxious fumes worked to develop asthma in the young lungs of the employee’s children. The ability of this environment, glamorized by the lure of the ‘American dream,’ to cause extreme bodily harm is not reflected within the American economy. The deeply ingrained, patriarchal ideal of success does not include labor that is seen as undesirable. Silvia Federici, an influential socialist feminist thinker, argues that this ignorance points to an even larger flaw in the way our workforce is structured, and how capitalism takes advantage of our nation’s most vulnerable. Vuong shares aninteresting perspective on this by stating that he hates and loves his mother’s battered hands for what they can never be. Even the child of an immigrant, conditioned by abuse to respect andfear his mother, is ashamed of her occupation. Compared to similar accounts of families chasing the ‘American dream,’ the rawness of Vuong’s emotions makes his entire sentiment even more powerful, as he appeals to each side.Later in the story, Vuong grapples with his sexuality and an opioid addiction, conditioned to believe both are evil. This novel is special in many ways, but its strong, emotional tone helps the reader to connect even deeper to the barriers an immigrant family faces, even if they have no experience with the subject. Early on in the story, we learn that Rose, Vuong’s mother, is illiterate. This open letter of resentment, pride, and love that he feels towards his mother will never be received by her, as she cannot conceptualize the act of reading and writing. The notion that Vuong is writing this as a way to reinforce his ownership over the experiences he has endured continues to impress his audience as a second generation, queer man of color taking his own power in a society that systemically does not grant him any.

Beautifully written and very vivid

Arrived with a dirty and torn cover.