Structured as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, the story follows Little Dog, a Vietnamese American man coming of age in Hartford, Connecticut. He recounts his family’s history, tracing their path from the aftermath of the Vietnam War to their lives as refugees working in nail salons and tobacco fields. The narrative details the physical abuse he suffers at his mother’s hands, his grandfather’s absence, and his first romantic relationship with a white boy named Trevor during the height of the opioid epidemic.
Readers of contemporary literary fiction and lyric prose will find a history of how trauma moves through immigrant generations. The book serves those interested in the intersections of queer identity, rural poverty, and the American working class. A reader walks away with a specific understanding of how language both connects and separates a family when the child gains a vocabulary the parent cannot access. It provides a granular look at the toll of manual labor and the chemical realities of addiction in marginalized communities.
Insights from On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
“To be a monster is to be a signal fire.”
Little Dog grew up watching Rose work in a nail salon. Her body broke down just to pay the rent. It made me think about how much physical pain goes into a single paycheck.
“I am writing to reach you even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are.”
The mother can't read the letter her son is writing to her. There is a deep loneliness in sharing your heart with someone who literally cannot see it.
Lan tells stories about the war in Vietnam while sitting on the porch. Her memories aren't history lessons. They are ghosts that still live in her kitchen.
“They say that sometimes the most beautiful thing about a body is that it’s still here.”
Trevor and Little Dog find a strange kind of safety in a tobacco barn. Sometimes love is just two people hiding from a world that doesn't want them.
- Published
- 2019
- Language
- EN
