Share your passion for reading contemporary literary fiction at our NEW Adult Evening Book Group at the Main Library!

We will meet on the fourth Wednesday of the month. Books will be available at the Information Services Desk.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous 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.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Photographs and/or video may be taken at this event. By taking part in this event you grant the library full rights to use the images for fundraising, publicity or other purposes. This might include (but is not limited to) the right to use them in the library’s printed and online publicity, website, social media, and press releases. If you do not wish to be photographed during this event, please inform a library staff member.