The Emperor of Gladness

Nineteen-year-old Hai plans to jump from a bridge in East Gladness, Connecticut. Rain falls on the town, once a center of industry. Across the river, an older woman calls out to him. Grazina, a widow with dementia, persuades him not to jump. With few choices left, Hai becomes her carer.

Over the next year, they form a close bond. Their shared life brings care, grief, and questions of faith. It changes how Hai sees himself, his family, and his troubled town.

Ocean Vuong’s novel explores friendship and family ties formed outside kinship. It follows people on society’s edges through loss and hope. Its themes include the stories people use to stay alive. History, memory, and time shape its view of American life. Love, work, and loneliness lie at the heart of that view. The novel uses experiments in form and syntax to explore pain, tenderness, and the chance to start again.