Ocean Vuong is a young Vietnamese-American writer — born in Saigon, he was raised in Hartford, Conn. — who made his debut in 2016 with “Night Sky With Exit Wounds,” a strong and much-praised book of poems. The narrator of “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” is known to nearly everyone as Little Dog. He’s a writer in his late 20s, but this story is told largely in retrospect. We learn about his troubled family and youth, and about some occasional ecstasies, sexual and otherwise. She hits Little Dog too often, once smiting him with a box of Legos.

Source: New York Times May 27, 2019 16:52 UTC