There are two competing reactions to Ocean Vuong‘s 2019 memoir, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
The first is that Vuong is a stunning writer, as in one whose sentences and paragraphs can literally stun you, making you look up from the book and stare into space at the beauty and power of what you just read. This is true of their poetry, and, as we find here, true of their prose as well. It’s a brilliant and beautiful book, an achievement made more special by the trauma and emotional pain that forms most of its subject matter.
The other reaction is that, at the end of the day, there isn’t a ton here. The book essentially outlines his first homosexual experiences and the deep chasm of pain that separates (and unites) him and his mother and grandmother. There is little of his emergence as a poet, and little insight into how his art emerged.
Which is, of course, fine: at the end of the day, it only means I will eagerly await his second memoir. In the meantime, the language of this and of his poetry will remain with me.