Rental Partner: University of Washington Office of Public Lectures presents
Briana Scurry
My Greatest Save
Ocean Vuong with Putsata Reang
The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel
EVENT NOTES
Doors for this event will open at 6:30 PM. Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.
“The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…”
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 next year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. Built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, their unexpected friendship develops the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.
In his highly anticipated second novel, The Emperor of Gladness, award-winning author Ocean Vuong invites readers into a lyrical depiction of the ways human connection can provide crucial infrastructure on the fringes of society. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, Vuong aims to show the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness have contributed to the foundations of American life and the stories we tell ourselves and each other in order to survive. Emerging from the messiness of reality and the collected traumas of endurance is a brave, heartfelt epic on the impacts of found and chosen family.
Grounded in the lived experiences of his characters and elevated with a dextrous grasp on prose, Vuong invites readers on an exploration of intergenerational bonds and self-discovery. The Emperor of Gladness presents a tender yet unblinking approach to trauma and resilience in a story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies — a second chance.
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Ocean Vuong is a critically acclaimed author, essayist, and poet. He is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, and serves as a Professor of Modern Poetry and Poetics in the MFA Program at NYU. His award-winning works include the poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
Putsata Reang is an author and a journalist whose writings have appeared in The New York Times, Politico, The Guardian, Ms, and The Seattle Times, among other publications. Born in Cambodia and raised in rural Oregon, Reang has lived and worked in more than a dozen countries. She is an alum of several prestigious fellowships and residencies, and teaches memoir writing at multiple levels. Her latest book, Ma and Me, explores the long legacy of inherited trauma and the crushing weight of cultural and filial duty, in the context of her journey to come out to her family and claim her identity. The book has won the Pacific Northwest Book Award and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Presented by Town Hall Seattle.
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