I don’t tend to read reviews or long pieces on books before I’ve read them, so for the most part I get a glimpse of what the atmosphere is going to be like from maybe one or two people. Then I save the book somewhere in my Instagram saves or my Goodreads to-read. When the time finally comes to read it, I let myself be surprised. Sometimes all I need is a front cover and two thematic words to convince me a book is worth reading. With On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous I expected poetry. Not a poetry book, but a book written by a poet.
This is what we get. It’s a memoir, with sprinkles of fiction thrown in, yet Vuong writes as a poet and he writes to poets.
This post will spoil the main elements of the book.
Summary & Review
Vuong begins On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous as a series of letters to his mother, who doesn’t read English. At first I thought this book was going to be a kind of mother/son story. But it becomes evident after a few chapters that the mother is only the central figure in the beginning, when Vuong is a child. Though he never frames it as such, the introduction of Trevor in the story reads to me like a replacement. Near the end when he is gone, his mother comes back into view.
As I was reading, I thought about what he keeps from his mother. She’s not the one who passes away. I expected a death early on, even. Additionally, she can’t be a figure that he trusts with his exacting expressions and feelings, because he knows she’ll never read the book: where he contains these things. There’s a chance she may never even know that it was written.
Meanwhile, we have a coming of age story, a story of trauma (his mother’s history of Vietnam). And his. We’re given a childhood of being abused, as well as a coming out story. There’s so much life and poetry in this small book, so much revealing and so many waves rolling on top of one another.
While I was reading it, I found several phrases worth underlining and exploring, but I stopped myself from doing that. I think what he has written is enough. I think this story needs to be read, not explained, to be given life the way poetry needs.
Purchasing:
You can get a copy of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous from Bookshop.org and support independent bookstores across the USA. Alternatively, you could purchase a copy from Booksio, a woman-owned online retailer who donates 15% of earnings every month.
For more of my writing, check out my other book reviews.
