A Review of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019)

[xiomara]

A Review of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019).
By Stephen Hong Sohn

I was a little bit cautious when approaching Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous precisely because I had heard so many things (in advance) about how wonderful the work was. I have been a big fan of Vuong’s poetry. I reviewed Burnings (a chapbook out from Sibling Rivarly Press) here on AALF and then taught Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon), so when I heard about the publication of his first novel, I was both elated and a little bit trepidatious that the novel might fall short of my expectations. Fortunately, such was NOT the case. Here is a description over from B&N:

“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.”

I have no idea who wrote this description but its highly suspect for one huge reason: the word “sexuality” never appears anywhere in the description. God forbid someone actually market something as “queer,” especially because so much of the emotional heft in this novel is embedded in the protagonist’s relationship to a teenager named Trevor. I’m surprised (and incredibly disappointed) that Trevor doesn’t merit a mention. The other major character—if we want to call “it” that—is the city of Hartford, Connecticut. I was absolutely transported by Vuong’s breathtaking narrative, especially in its careful and deliberate rendering of a heterogeneous city, one marked by great disparities in wealth and health resources. Of course, the description pays great attention to the ethnic and racial aspects of the work: the protagonist has a pretty tortured but still loving relationship to his family. Never is this fact more present than in the way he speaks about both his mother and grandmother, a lineage of powerful, strong-willed women who obviously enable him to endure his own trials as a racial and sexual minority. The novel only gets stronger as it moves forward. Part of this momentum is achieved because the reader must get situated within the superbly lyrical way that Vuong renders the fictional world, no doubt a reflection of his abilities as an exceptional poet. It’s the kind of work that will not only receive much critical attention but will be taught in the classroom. I can easily see this work being taught alongside other narratives of migration and assimilation such as le thi diem thuy’s The Gangster We are All Looking For or Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic. It can also work quite well in classes that cover gender and sexuality, where it could find a wonderful place next to novels and works such as Carla Trujillo’s What Night Brings or Justin Torres’s We the Animals. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is one of the stand-out reads for me of 2019, and I will certainly be recommending it to any reader, any lover of words printed on the page. Let’s hope Vuong goes on to have a career much like Michael Ondaatje, someone who has been able to find as much success in poetry as in prose.

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/on-earth-were-briefly-gorgeous-ocean-vuong/1129509905#/

Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Nicholas Clark
Web Posting: Xiomara Forbez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don't hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at sohnucr@gmail.com
Nicholas Clark, PhD Student in English, at nclar004@ucr.edu