Talks & Entertainment

From the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, comes The Emperor of Gladness—a novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

One evening in East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on a bridge, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to an elderly widow with dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he becomes her caretaker. The unlikely pair develop a life-altering bond built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.

The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. It’s about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Vuong will be in conversation with Nicole Chung, the author of the memoirs A Living Remedy, named a Notable Book by The New York Times, and All You Can Ever Know, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

All books will be pre-signed by the author.