Océan

2025 · rif. 19999 — SCARCE SIGNED! FIRST EDITION first printing. Full number line present. Book is brand new and unread. Personally hand signed by Ocean Vuong directly to specially bound publisher's signature page. NOT inscribed to anyone. NOT a bookplate. Dust jacket hand covered in protective archival grade Mylar for many worry free years of reading/collecting! Oprah's Book Club Pick • Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family unexpected friendship and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive "Stunning . . . A heartfelt and powerful examination of those living on the fringes of society and the unique challenges they face to survive and thrive." —Oprah Winfrey "Magnificent . . . In writing this book Vuong may have joined the ranks of an elite few great novelists." —Leigh Haber Los Angeles Times 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 year the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond one 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. Following the cycles of history memory and time The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love labor and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong's writing—formal innovation syntactic dexterity and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss hope and how far we would go to possess one of life's most fleeting mercies: a second chance. Penguin Press hardcover