Book Club: "On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 07:35:23 -0400

The next virtual book club reading is: "On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong. The book is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. (From Penguin random House)

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Suggested Reading Schedule:

By Thursday, October 15th, get a copy of the book

By October 29th, finish reading the first half of Part 1

By November 4th, finish reading Part 1

By November 11th, finish reading the first half of Part 2

By November 26th, finish reading Part 2

By December 10th, finish the book and get ready for our end-of-book discussion!