Book Club: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
This debut novel by American-Vietnamese poet Ocean Vuong is a painful but heart-warming coming-of-age/ coming-out story.
Through a letter written to his mother - an illiterate Vietnamese immigrant - Vuong shares the heartbreaking portrait of a family shattered by war and a first love wrecked by addiction and poverty. Even in this novel format, his skill as a poet shines through, the words sparkling on the page as he navigates a whirlwind narrative that twists between various episodes of his life and his family history.
Exploring the beginnings of his sexuality in a brutal honesty and with an urgency, the reader feels the tenderness of his first love, the violence and the anguish of being ‘other’. This is a story of loss, of everything that was lost by three generations of a family, of growing up as a poor, gay, immigrant in America; the redemption of survival and the idea that in the power of telling your own story, there is a profound beauty. Vuong’s voice is authentic, real, and he speaks with a strength that left me contemplating his words for days after I put the book down.
Book Club discussion points:
Vuong writes this as a letter to his mother, who will never read it. What effect does that have on the style of the novel?
One of the themes of the story is the identity. How does the author use various settings and characters to explore the experience of the American immigrant?
What causes the divides between Little Dog, Ma and Lan? And where are their connections?
What does the character of Trevor symbolise in terms of masculinity?
Vuong uses the butterfly as a motif throughout the story. What does it symbolise?
Compare the ways in which Trevor’s family and the family of Little Dog are marginalized by society.
How does this book show the redemptive power of story-telling? Who are the story-tellers and how does their story-telling compare?
At one point, Little Dog seems resigned to fate. But what drives him to survive?
Consider Little Dog’s relationship with violence, both inherited and lived. How does he represent pain he suffers, particularly from the people he loves, in his writing? Compare how he relates pain versus pleasure: “Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.”
If you read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
