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ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS A Novel
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ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS A Novel Hardcover - 2019

by Vuong, Ocean

  • Used
  • Hardcover
  • first

Description

Penguin Press. As New in As New dust jacket. 2019. Hardcover. 0525562028 . Vietnamese author. First printing. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 256 pp .
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Details

  • Title ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS A Novel
  • Author Vuong, Ocean
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Condition New
  • Pages 256
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Press
  • Date 2019
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 50016
  • ISBN 9780525562023 / 0525562028
  • Weight 0.8 lbs (0.36 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 in (21.59 x 14.73 x 2.29 cm)
  • Themes
    • Topical: Coming of Age
    • Topical: Lgbt
  • Library of Congress subjects Mothers and sons, Bildungsromans
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2018046290
  • Dewey Decimal Code 813.6

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Summary

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 (from publishers website).

From the publisher

A New York Times bestseller - Nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction - Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling

"A lyrical work of self-discovery that's shockingly intimate and insistently universal...Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"This is one of the best novels I've ever read...Ocean Vuong is a master. This book a masterpiece."--Tommy Orange, author of There There and Wandering Stars

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.

Named a Best Book of the Year by:
GQ, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME, Esquire, The Washington Post, Apple, Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker, The New York Public Library, Elle.com, The Guardian, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, and more!

Media reviews

Citations

  • Booklist, 04/15/2019, Page 21
  • BookPage, 06/01/2019, Page 0
  • Kirkus Reviews, 04/01/2019, Page 45
  • Library Journal, 03/01/2019, Page 120
  • Library Journal Prepub Alert, 01/01/2019, Page 53
  • Publishers Weekly, 04/01/2019, Page 0

About the author

Ocean 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 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant, he is also the winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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