A title like The Emperor of Gladness conjures images of grandeur, or indeed of a utopian state, writes Conor Hanratty.
In fact, Ocean Vuong's new novel is set in East Gladness, a fictionalised small town in Connecticut. It begins with a tense, observant tour through the town, leading to a bridge on its outskirts. Our narrator, as yet anonymous, is planning to jump from it. Before he does, he sees a woman below, losing her laundry to the wind. In a tiny act of kindness, he tries to tell her where her blanket has gone. The elderly woman then convinces the younger man not to end his life. She coaxes him off the bridge, and shares some bread with him. Thus Vuong brings together his two protagonists, Hai and Grazina. Without much ado, in mutual desperation, they agree that Hai will move in and ensure she takes her medicine.
Watch: Ocean Vuong discusses the inspiration behind The Emperor of Gladness
Much of Hai’s story is based on Vuong’s own experiences, as the child of Vietnamese war refugees in Connecticut, as a drug user, and as a live-in carer for a real-life Grazina, acknowledged in the novel’s end papers. Hai’s circle expands further when, desperate for money, he gets a job at a restaurant, joining some other remarkable characters: they include Hai's cousin Sony, Maureen, Wayne, Russia and BJ, their manager. They become what Vuong has elsewhere described as a "circumstantial" family, united by their day-to-day collaboration in the physical labour of reconstituting food. Vuong - speaking again from personal experience - is at his most subversive when describing the mythology behind these "freshly" prepared meals. (His descriptions of the acceptable levels of rat or human remains in processed food are hair-raising.)
Vuong's prose is as poetic and luminous as we have already come to expect.
Myths are woven through the tapestry of these lives - mythologies as varied but essential as Star Wars, college education, the efficacy of rehab, "customer service" and, most pernicious, The American Dream. In this little pocket of New England, these people live lives far from what they wanted. But even in the strangest, most violent and challenging circumstances, they help each other. Despite a debilitating lack of hope, despite bleak glimpses into their lives outside work, this circumstantial (if not "chosen") family proves generous, supportive and tolerant. This is Vuong’s point: even in this hopeless life in a hopeless town, people are good to each other. While he skewers the corporate concerns of the industries behind food production, incarceration and care for the elderly, Vuong shows with no small grace how ordinary people, despite cruel adversity, continually tend toward kindness. In the world today, this feels like a revolutionary observation.
Vuong’s prose is as poetic and luminous as we have already come to expect. He can - and does - make anything seem delicate and special, from a suicidal walk through East Gladness to a ladies’ wrestling match in a biker bar. It is a long book, but Vuong rewards close attention with surprises, belly-laughs and resolutions to almost all the tiny observations that he makes. The novel begins and ends with kindness without any hope of reward. It might not inspire many to visit these corners of Connecticut, but it left this reader with more than a little faith in humanity restored.
The Emperor Of Gladness is published by Jonathan Cape
