East Gladness is a fictional town in Connecticut. One night, our college-drop out, Vietnamese-born, distraught protagonist (Hai) contemplates jumping off a bridge to end it all. But he is stopped by Grazina, a Lithuanian widow in her eighties, who is slowly but surely succumbing to dementia. And, thus, an epic and complicated novel begins. In addition to being a novel about family, the American Dream, immigration, aging, suicide, sexuality, friendship, drug abuse/addiction, autism, history, and friendship, we get Hai at work. Hai is an employee at HomeMarket, which unironically gives the Boston Market vibe, and we meet a bunch of colorful characters including Sony, B.J., Maureen, and Wayne. Ocean Vuong is a poet first (maybe?), but also a novelist (On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous). In this, the prose is alive with ordinary lives.
Jennifer: So I loved this novel, because the writing is freakin’ amazing. And it’s a full-bodied novel–not one to be pegged as a book belonging to a single category. I’d challenge people to read this, even if they are not drawn to addiction sagas or LGBT tales or novels on ethnic identity. This book is so richly human, and I say this as one who can be pretty, um, rigid? This is literature, and it is about the human experience. I have to start out by saying, “Bravo, Ocean Vuong!” And then I have to add, “Can we meet for dinner soon?”
Your first responses?
Lara: I am kinda shocked you loved it as much as you did! I loved his first novel, which we reviewed here; and I was super excited that he had a new book out this year. My initial response was I liked it and I wanted to talk about it. Desperately.
We have a young man, Hai, who is living a lie. Hai has lied to his mother, a nail-tech, about getting in and going to medical school. He goes so far as to pack a suitcase and have her watch him walk out the door to catch his ride. But he doesn’t go there. He goes to a bridge and decides he’s going to jump.
Grazina, an elderly widow, yells out to him and it’s enough to make him pause, stop, and walk away from the bridge. She’s alone and she needs help around the house. Without any training or any source of income, he agrees. They are both on the fringes, living without really anything to hope for, yet they create this kind of found-family that’s surrounded in kindness.
Jennifer: Yes! So, Hai realizes he needs a job and applies at the HomeMarket (which is a spin- off of Boston Market, a place Vuong actually worked). He’s able to get the job because, as it turns out, his cousin Sony, an autistic Civil War superfan and semi-orphan (Dad is gone, mom is in jail), works there. HomeMarket reminded me, truly, of a fast food version of “The Bear.” Wayne is in charge of the chicken, BJ is the manager–she sweetens the restaurant’s famous cornbread by adding in her own secret ingredient and she’s hoping to make it as a female wrestler. Maureen is a conspiracy theorist (the kind who believes politicians are ruled by a lizard colony). Others add to the fun. I have to say, I loved the HomeMarket stuff!
Lara: I have to say something too: what turned this book from a like to a love was hearing Vuong’s interview with Oprah. This book has a lot of misery and sadness and people who are stuck. He said that when he was learning to write fiction, he was always told that characters needed to grow and change. They had to evolve or learn or seek redemption. His response to that was WHY? Most people don’t. Most of us don’t change. Most of us don’t evolve beyond our circumstances.
And here’s what sat with me—and I am paraphrasing—he said that it was more interesting to him to write about people who have nothing to hope for, but can still find ways to be kind to one another. To still find a way to live a life. And these are lives that may look different to a lot of readers, but they are lives that matter and have meaning.
I love this passage between Hai and his cousin Sony:
“Do you think a life you can’t remember is still a good life?” The question sounded almost silly aloud. “I mean, like—”
“Yes,” said Sony.
“Why’s that?”
“Because someone else will remember it.”
That smacked me in the face. I could feel my compassion and curiosity open up.
Jennifer: There are so many wise things he said in that talk with Oprah, incidentally. I thought it was a great interview. He sounded super smart–and you know how that appeals to the snotty literati in me.
Lara: Smart and super empathetic and just appreciative of this life he’s been given. He’s the first in his family to get a college education. I don’t think he takes any of this for granted.
Jennifer: I see what you’re liking. I think it’s philosophically loaded. I won’t go into it but questions linger: Why do we crave meaning so much? (Lara, you don’t answer that. Ocean, I’ll buy you coffee if you’d like to discuss existentialism and the like.) And how does the very end of this novel resonate with Ocean’s comments? (We won’t divulge the end.)
I just admired a lot about this novel–the diversity of the characters, the weirdnesses of the characters, the ordinariness of the characters. Who were your favorites? Did you look forward to parts?
Lara: I loved everyone at HomeMarket (and that Vuong based it on his time working at Boston Market and other fast food places). Sony became my favorite. He’s on the spectrum, obsessed with the Civil War and origami, and most people have such low expectations of him. While I wouldn’t say he grows, he’s got some surprises up his sleeve. I loved that.
Jennifer: I loved him too. I really loved them all.
You had mentioned in conversation that the pig scene was hard. Why?
Lara: For background, Vuong introduces the concept of the Emperor Hog, a hog bred for consumption by the wealthy, prepared by the poor. The HomeMarket crew, led by Wayne, takes a side job slaughtering pigs, a job that Wayne (the chicken preparer) has done for years.
“You know, I’ve been cutting up these hogs for three years now. I don’t regret none of it. They were born to die. And I’m just a hammer.”
The scene is violent, some may say gratuitously so, in exposing the brutalities of commercial meat production. I think Vuong erred on the side of over-sharing to draw parallels between these animals, raised for the sole purpose of disposal, and these characters who are seen as disposable by society. It was a powerful message. It was also hard to read.
Jennifer: You know, I thought it was a powerful scene. First, because Vuong mentioned that he really did have a bizarre pig experience, and it struck me–as he was telling this to Oprah–that it’s really sometimes like that for writers: one has some crazy, not-normal, experience in life; one is compelled to write about it, somehow, in some way. Second, you just mentioned something I obviously forgot that’s key. These are Emperor Hogs. And he is the Emperor of Gladness. Good writing! Any disappointments?
Lara: I don’t think so. Vuong has the talent to tackle a lot—the immigrant experience, violence, poverty, addiction, aging, loneliness, and the state of humanity without it feeling like he’s checking a box to make sure a certain topic or type of person is included. His writing is naturally inclusive. While it’s a hard book to read, it’s important. More people live like Hai and his circumstantial family than we likely realize.
Jennifer: I like what you say about checking boxes. You’re right. Somehow or other, he packs all kinds of topics into this book–and it never sounds contrived!
But the thing I really love is that Ocean is a fabulous writer:
“Because it’s like that when you’re fourteen,” he said. “The superpower of being young is that you’re closest to being nothing – which is also the same as being very old.”
I guess what I want to say about this book is that I don’t agree with much of Ocean’s philosophical thinking–he’s a bit of a nihilist!–but quotes like the one above illustrate his extraordinary ability to write. I love it. I respect it.
This one hurts:
“You wanna be a writer and you want to jump off a bridge? That’s pretty much the same thing, no? A writer just takes longer to hit the water.”
Lara: Oof, that does sting. His writing is powerful. I want to end with a passage that sums up what we have been talking about. It’s both beautiful writing and heartbreaking to read:
“How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found in here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined houses by a toxic river. That among a pile of salvaged trash, he would come closest to all he ever wanted to be: a consciousness sitting under a light-bulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody’s son.”
Jennifer: Love it. Also, Hai is always reading very good books. Much of his scenic writing is also very notable. I loved the whole first chapter.
What else have you been reading?
Lara: Oh my great reading year continues! Since we last chatted, my five-star reads were Bel Canto: The Annotated Edition by Ann Patchett (only to be read if you have read the original book first), My Friends by Fredrik Backman, You Are Here by David Nicholls. I also really liked Bruce Holsinger’s Culpability, Kwuami Onwuachi’s Notes From A Young Black Chef, Jason Pargin’s I’m Beginning to Worry About this Black Box of Doom. And I liked the social commentary,, but struggled with the structure and number of characters of Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
What about you?
Jennifer: You are reading goddess these days. Like you, I read Bel Canto: The Annotated Edition by Ann Patchett. I genuinely enjoyed reading a seasoned writer’s commentary on her own older work. I read a lot too, including The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (a good companion piece for The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami) and Leif Enger’s Peace Like a River. And I continue to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Please send donations.
Up Next!
We’ll be back with North Woods by Daniel Mason.