On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“This beautiful book had me hooked right at the title. And while it is a novel, Ocean Vuong’s poetic language dances on every page.

“It’s told in the form of a letter written by a young man called Little Dog to his illiterate Vietnamese mother as he flits between past and present to make sense of their relationship and his upbringing. The story unfolds between the paddy fields of Vietnam to the shopping malls and tobacco fields of Hartford, Connecticut, slowly revealing the layers of intergenerational trauma left by war and family violence.

“Addressing class, race and the immigrant experience, it’s also a queer coming of age story. At the heart of the book is Little Dog’s teenage love affair with Trevor, a white working-class boy whose ultimate self-destruction with drugs can be traced to the toxic masculinity that surrounds him. As much as it is a commentary on the dark side of the American Dream, it is also a tender testament to the unbreakable love between a mother and son. Little Dog’s mother tells him: “You have a bellyful of English. You have to use it.” And my goodness, does he use it” - Dua Lipa

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