The Emperor of Gladness

by Ocean Vuong

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

There are the books you read and then there are the books you experience, like this one by poet, photographer and bestselling writer Ocean Vuong, whose novels are spun from gorgeous prose and vibrant, original imagery.

“The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. Epic in its sweep, the novel also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Hai and Grazina are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world.” —Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island and Brooklyn

“A masterwork.” —Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Family Meal

Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593831878
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/13/2025
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.42(w) x 9.55(h) x 1.33(d)

About the Author

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he used to work as a fast-food server, which inspired The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/10/2025

Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful story of a troubled young man. “The hardest thing in the world is to live only once,” 19-year-old Hai narrates in the opening line, but there’s a dark edge to the sentiment. The reader first meets Hai on a bridge in East Gladness, Conn., where he’s about to jump to his death. He’s stopped by Grazina, an 82-year-old Lithuanian woman. She invites him to stay with her, and as her dementia worsens, he cares for her—feeding her, bathing her, and administering medicine. The experience soothes Hai: “How strange to feel something so close to mercy... at the end of a road of ruined houses by a toxic river.” Hai tells his mother he is attending medical school, but in fact, shortly before meeting Grazina, he was released from rehab for opioid addiction. Now, while staying with the older woman, he takes a job at the restaurant where his cousin works, and pops Dilaudids “to hold him over” during shifts. Vuong’s scenes are vivid, and the pitch-perfect dialogue cuts like a knife (“Never cry in a diner,” Grazina tells Hai. “They charge extra if they catch you. Believe me. I’ve seen it happen”). This downbeat tale soars to astonishing heights. Agent: Frances Coady, Aragi Inc. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful story of a troubled young man . . . Vuong’s scenes are vivid, and the pitch-perfect dialogue cuts like a knife . . . This downbeat tale soars to astonishing heights.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[E]xploring themes of war and labor—their wretchedness, their dignity—Vuong's epic-feeling novel is a determined portrait of community, caretaking, and characters who, if they only have each other, have quite a lot.” —Booklist (starred review)

“[A]mbitious . . . The references to Slaughterhouse-Five and The Brothers Karamazov underscore Vuong’s interest in exploring war and morality, but this is remarkable as a novel that tries to look at those themes outside of conventional realism or combat porn . . . A sui generis take on the surprising and cruel ways violence is passed on across generations.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. Epic in its sweep, the novel also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Hai and Grazina are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world.” —Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island and Brooklyn

“Tender and moving, The Emperor of Gladness is about people on the margins of society and sanity. To my surprise and delight, Vuong’s novel is also wryly, subtly, wittily—and sometimes outrageously—a comedy as well as a tragedy.” —Rebecca Solnit, author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost and Recollections of My Nonexistence

“A masterwork.” —Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Family Meal

From the Publisher

★ 2025-02-01
A young man’s path to redemption runs through a New England chain restaurant.

Hai, the hero of Vuong’s ambitious second novel—followingOn Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019)—is a 19-year-old college dropout and painkiller addict prepared to kill himself by leaping off a bridge in East Gladness, a rural Connecticut town. He’s coaxed to safety by Grazina, an 82-year-old woman with dementia, and soon he becomes her in-home support; with the help of a cousin, Sony, he lands a job at HomeMarket, a fast-casual joint. This is an unlikely milieu for a novel about the long consequences of violence, but that’s what Vuong strives for: In poetic, somber prose, he contemplates Grazina’s memories of escaping her native Lithuania under Stalin’s purges, the U.S. Civil War (Sony is obsessed with battles and the filmGettysburg), and his own family’s escape from Vietnam to America. The book is filled with some brilliant set pieces: A harrowing scene where Hai and his co-workers slaughter pigs for extra cash, his boss’s ill-fated attempt to launch a career as a pro wrestler, and moments where Hai soothes Grazina in the midst of her dementia by pretending to be a U.S. Army sergeant helping her escape Stalin’s clutches. And throughout, Hai serves as a sponge absorbing America’s worst elements: addiction, racism, and the urge to feign hollow successes. (He routinely lies to his mother, who believes he’s thriving in med school.) The references toSlaughterhouse-Five andThe Brothers Karamazov underscore Vuong’s interest in exploring war and morality, but this is remarkable as a novel that tries to look at those themes outside of conventional realism or combat porn. It’s a messy but worthy exploration of how hurt and self-deception leaches into everyday life.

A sui generis take on the surprising and cruel ways violence is passed on across generations.

Kirkus Reviews