The Emperor of Gladness

Rating: 4 out of 5 This is an adult novel - complex, poetic. It languishes in a continuous cycle of tragedy and hope.

My Thoughts:

With a name like Ocean Vuong, I expected the writing to be poetic -- and it really is. Sentences and phrases stopped me; I had to catch my breath. The author is a word caster.  It begins with Hai, the protagonist, set to commit suicide; but across the river is Grazina, a widow who convinces him to come and talk to her.  He never leaves. 

The journey of Grazina and Hai, who she calls Labas, is a journey through dementia, loneliness, despair, and hope. He is hiding out after lying to his immigrant mother about going to medical school, while also acting as a caretaker to another man's mother. 

 This is about mundane lives. This is about living outside the liminal edges of the American dream, not just as immigrants,  but also as the uneducated, the poor, and the marginalized. 

I was curious about the title, expecting a "big win" that never quite happens. However, I did some research into reviews and scholarly articles, and it seems like the title could be a nod to the Wallace Stevens poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream."  As Austin Allen notes in the Poetry Foundation, the connection provides a haunting perspective on reality and appearance.

Finally, some of the quotes I had to write down:

“Words cast spells. You should know this as a writer. That's why it's called spelling, Labas.”

 “How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined house 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 lightbulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody's son.”

From the Publisher:

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 alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at 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 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.

Publication Information:

• Author: Ocean Vuong
• Narrator: James Aaron Oh
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: May 13, 2025
• Listening length: 14 hours and 5 minutes