The emperor of gladness A novel

Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful story of a troubled young man. "The hardest thing in the world is to live only once," 19-year-old Hai narrates in the opening line, but there's a dark edge to the sentiment. The reader first meets Hai on a bridge in East Gladness, Conn., where he's about to jump to his death. He's stopped by Grazina, an 82-year-old Lithuanian woman. She invites him to stay with her, and as her dementia worsens, he cares for her--feeding her, bathing her, and administering medicine. The experience soothes Hai: "How strange to feel something so close to mercy... at the end of a road of ruined houses by a toxic river." Hai tells his mother he is attending medical school, but in fact, shortly before meeting Grazina, he was released from rehab for opioid addiction. Now, while staying with the older woman, he takes a job at the restaurant where his cousin works, and pops Dilaudids "to hold him over" during shifts. Vuong's scenes are vivid, and the pitch-perfect dialogue cuts like a knife ("Never cry in a diner," Grazina tells Hai. "They charge extra if they catch you. Believe me. I've seen it happen"). This downbeat tale soars to astonishing heights. Agent: Frances Coady, Aragi Inc. (May)

A young man's path to redemption runs through a New England chain restaurant. Hai, the hero of Vuong's ambitious second novel--followingOn Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)--is a 19-year-old college dropout and painkiller addict prepared to kill himself by leaping off a bridge in East Gladness, a rural Connecticut town. He's coaxed to safety by Grazina, an 82-year-old woman with dementia, and soon he becomes her in-home support; with the help of a cousin, Sony, he lands a job at HomeMarket, a fast-casual joint. This is an unlikely milieu for a novel about the long consequences of violence, but that's what Vuong strives for: In poetic, somber prose, he contemplates Grazina's memories of escaping her native Lithuania under Stalin's purges, the U.S. Civil War (Sony is obsessed with battles and the filmGettysburg), and his own family's escape from Vietnam to America. The book is filled with some brilliant set pieces: A harrowing scene where Hai and his co-workers slaughter pigs for extra cash, his boss's ill-fated attempt to launch a career as a pro wrestler, and moments where Hai soothes Grazina in the midst of her dementia by pretending to be a U.S. Army sergeant helping her escape Stalin's clutches. And throughout, Hai serves as a sponge absorbing America's worst elements: addiction, racism, and the urge to feign hollow successes. (He routinely lies to his mother, who believes he's thriving in med school.) The references toSlaughterhouse-Five andThe Brothers Karamazov underscore Vuong's interest in exploring war and morality, but this is remarkable as a novel that tries to look at those themes outside of conventional realism or combat porn. It's a messy but worthy exploration of how hurt and self-deception leaches into everyday life. A sui generis take on the surprising and cruel ways violence is passed on across generations. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.