A sad but sometimes funny story of people trying to survive on the margins of life, in a broken down post industrial town in Connecticut. Here is my book review The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong.

The Emperor of Gladness

The title made me think this book was about a person…I imagined someone with a positive attitude living a positive life. Well, that is not what this book is. Very much the opposite. The Emperor of Gladness is not a person but more of a state of mind. Throughout the novel we follow a cast of characters who become the most unlikely friends. Each one dealing in their own way with the suffering of the world.

Hai

When we meet Hai, he is standing on a bridge in the dark about to end his life. Addiction has plagued him and he has lied so egregiously to his mother to make her happy he sees no way to come clean. But then he hears someone calling to him and he meets an old woman living in a dilapidated house on the edge of the bridge. Hai and Grazina, who suffers from dementia, will form an improbably bond as he becomes her caretaker.

The HomeMarket

Hai goes to the local HomeMarket, a kind of slow food grocery, to find his cousin Sony and try to get a job. Sony introduces Hai to BJ the manager and she hires him. Over the next month Hai will befriend the quirky collection of addicts, veterans, dreamers and a civil war history enthusiast to form a sort of family, as he continues to care for Grazina and lie to his mother.

Suffering

As Grazina’s dementia spirals, her son realizes Hai is not a trained nurse and calls the cops. At the same time BJ is forced by the corporate office to let Sony go and in his despair he runs away. Hai wants so much to save them both, save everyone, and elemenate all their suffering. The ragtag group of friends with Grazina in tow go on one last adventure, in an effort to help Sony.

Witty and Moving

This is not a happy story, but you feel such empathy for these odd characters. This book is a moving look at those in our midst living on the edge of sanity, those in our society on the margins who have so little and only want to be loved. The ending is ambiguous, apparently by design. What will happen to Hai? Can he find peace in this harsh world of suffering?

Thank you for reading my book review The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong.

****Four stars for The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. See last week’s book review Buckeye by Patrick Ryan.