Many times, I hear readers and booktubers rave about a particular book. I want to read it. But I don’t find it for the longest time. By the time I do, I know a lot about the story and the author and I’m a little in love with it already. I put off reading it for a while to prolong the anticipation, often displaying the book on my bookshelf so I can see it every day. That book is kept aside for when things aren’t going well and I need to get lost in a story or when I’m on a break and need to detach.
I hype the book so much in my head it rarely ever lives up to it. I’m not disappointed but it’s never as good as I think it will be. But Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ surpassed my expectations.
The title made me happy. I was, however, unprepared for the rollercoaster ride of emotions I was in for. The narrative structure is a bit confusing but Vuong’s debut novel is tender and powerful. The book is a letter from a son to a mother, only she can’t read: “Dear Ma, I am writing to reach you—even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are.” Just the idea of it gave me goosebumps right from the start.
The narrator is Little Dog, a Vietnamese immigrant in the US, who explores his family’s history, the violence there was over generations, and his understanding of sexuality. Writing to his mother is also Little Dog’s way of trying to find closure. We learn that his mother, Rose, was violent, often throwing a box of legos or a jug of milk at him. His relationship with his boyfriend, Trevor, later on also mimics his equation with his mother. In a way, his relation with Rose becomes his life’s governing factor. Whatever he goes through and how he feels and reacts to it come from her.
At times, the novel reads like an autobiography. There are scenes and memories that seem to come from the author’s own experience. They feel too vivid to be anything but real. The writing is choppy but lyrical and thus impactful. You sometimes struggle to keep up with what’s happening but you are so caught in the midst of it all that it doesn’t matter. You keep reading, hoping things will eventually make sense and they always do.
Vuong is an award-winning poet whose 2017 debut poetry collection, ‘Night Sky with Exit Wounds’, won both a Forward prize and the TS Eliot prize. Towards the end of the book, the writing takes on a prose poetry format. I don’t recall having come across this kind of writing style before and the novelty of it was refreshing. All in all, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a different kind of storytelling. It’s chaotic, it’s nothing like you’ve ever read—bordering on fiction and non-fiction—and it’s simply gorgeous.
