In June 2019, the renowned Vietnamese-American Poet, Ocean Vuong  (pronounced like song), released his first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. The Epistolary novel is described as “a letter to a mother who can not read” This sentence greatly defines the work. Ocean Vuong uses his letter to explore his relationship with the women who raised him as well as his relationship with his country of origin, Vietnam, and where he grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. Although he spends the entirety of the novel talking directly to his mother, his writing is sure to speak to any reader.

Vuong uses his immense abilities as a poet to combine the harsh topics of his life with strikingly beautiful imagery. “Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted,” writes Vuong, a testament to his ability to soften his traumatic story through sheer use of language. The entire novel reads like poetry, and Vuong’s poems are so vivid they almost read like a novel. It is clear that Vuong uses his writing as a coping mechanism to confront his trauma. This use of words to heal, vent and lament is part of what makes Vuong’s writing so tremendously powerful.

The fact that Vuong has such skillful control of the English language is even more impressive considering Vuong’s immigrant status. Specifically that he did not read or write at an elementary level until the age of eleven. Vuong’s ability to write so beautifully is a testament to his will to overcome the trials of his life. 

Both Night Sky With Exit Wounds (Vuong’s poetry collection), and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous are expressions of Ocean Vuong’s life and pain. They are intensely personal works, and therefore very moving. We see the author plead, serenade, and fight with his mother through words. Vuong writes about how we relate to other humans and about how those relations can both be an escape from trauma and a source of generational and grief-related trauma. “Try not to stand out,” Ocean’s mother tells him, “You are already Vietnamese,” implanting within him the fear she learned as a child during the war and an adult in the U.S., serving as one of many examples of times in which Vuong was taught to fear and hide as his foremothers were forced to.

Vuong also confronts what it means to have a nationality. He asks at the beginning of his novel, “What is a country if not a life sentence?” implying that his country of birth, Vietnam, is a place that continues to define him years later and an ocean away. Vuong’s writing is frequently focused on the immigrant experience; the way it makes one so invisible yet so targeted, and how it affects a family dynamic. 

Being able to love despite trauma is a prominent theme throughout Vuong’s writings. In On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, he recounts his first love, a boy named Trevor. This love story is by no means sugar-coated; it is painful and raw. Vuong laments, “ But how do I tell you about the boy without telling you about the drugs that soon blew it apart, the Oxy and coke, the way they made the world smolder at its tips?” showing his readers that in a world ravaged by war and a nation ravaged by a drug epidemic, love is inseparable from pain. Vuong knows that he can not tell the happy stories of his family without telling of the trauma, and the same goes for his first love.

The “love story,” is also a way for Vuong to confront the topic of being a young gay man in an immigrant family. It is rare that we get such an in-depth and personal account of the homosexual coming of age in literature, making Vuongs work a true gem. Vuong contextualizes his sexual awakening amongst a backdrop of abusive fathers, falling bombs and deadly drug use, making his story not just about being gay, but being a poor gay immigrant.

Even if you are not the kind of person to read such intense material, the pure beauty of Ocean Vuong’s writing will be enough to keep you entertained. However, if you are seeking to better understand your nationality, trauma, sexuality or familial relationships, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous will certainly do you some good. It is a book from which you can learn so much while being swelled with beautiful words.