Maureen Corrigan

Follow the train tracks, the ghosts advise, till they fork off and sink into a path of trampled weeds leading to a junkyard packed with school buses in various stages of amnesia. Furred with ivy, their dented hoods pooled with crisp leaves, they are relics of our mislearning.

If the novel's opening calls to mind Thornton Wilder glazed with Springsteen, what happens next reads like Vuong's nod to Frank Capra and his classic 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. Our main character, a 19-year-old depressed Vietnamese-American boy named Hai, stands on the town bridge. Hai has lied to his immigrant mother.

If the novel's opening calls to mind Thornton Wilder glazed with Springsteen, what happens next reads like Vuong's nod to Frank Capra and his classic 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. Our main character, a 19-year-old depressed Vietnamese-American boy named Hai, stands on the town bridge. Hai has lied to his immigrant mother.

If the novel's opening calls to mind Thornton Wilder glazed with Springsteen, what happens next reads like Vuong's nod to Frank Capra and his classic 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. Our main character, a 19-year-old depressed Vietnamese-American boy named Hai, stands on the town bridge. Hai has lied to his immigrant mother.

She knows he's dropped out of college, but in an effort to make her feel better, Hai claims he's been accepted to med school, which she naively believes. Her joy fills him with self-loathing. As High is about to jump into the river below, he's stopped, not by Clarence the angel, but by an elderly woman whose house abuts the river.

She knows he's dropped out of college, but in an effort to make her feel better, Hai claims he's been accepted to med school, which she naively believes. Her joy fills him with self-loathing. As High is about to jump into the river below, he's stopped, not by Clarence the angel, but by an elderly woman whose house abuts the river.

She knows he's dropped out of college, but in an effort to make her feel better, Hai claims he's been accepted to med school, which she naively believes. Her joy fills him with self-loathing. As High is about to jump into the river below, he's stopped, not by Clarence the angel, but by an elderly woman whose house abuts the river.

Grazina arrived in East Gladness as a Lithuanian refugee after World War II. She's now a widow suffering from dementia and stranded in what was once a thriving blue-collar neighborhood. Because she has an empty house and Hai can't return to his mother, the two settle in together with Hai becoming Grazina's caregiver.

Grazina arrived in East Gladness as a Lithuanian refugee after World War II. She's now a widow suffering from dementia and stranded in what was once a thriving blue-collar neighborhood. Because she has an empty house and Hai can't return to his mother, the two settle in together with Hai becoming Grazina's caregiver.

Grazina arrived in East Gladness as a Lithuanian refugee after World War II. She's now a widow suffering from dementia and stranded in what was once a thriving blue-collar neighborhood. Because she has an empty house and Hai can't return to his mother, the two settle in together with Hai becoming Grazina's caregiver.

This is one vision of a found family that Vuong presents in The Emperor of Gladness, and its miraculous lack of sentimentality surely owes something to the fact that he lived a similar story himself. In fact, Vuong dedicates this novel to his Grazina. Vuong's gifts of writerly restraint also keep things real here.

This is one vision of a found family that Vuong presents in The Emperor of Gladness, and its miraculous lack of sentimentality surely owes something to the fact that he lived a similar story himself. In fact, Vuong dedicates this novel to his Grazina. Vuong's gifts of writerly restraint also keep things real here.

This is one vision of a found family that Vuong presents in The Emperor of Gladness, and its miraculous lack of sentimentality surely owes something to the fact that he lived a similar story himself. In fact, Vuong dedicates this novel to his Grazina. Vuong's gifts of writerly restraint also keep things real here.

About midway through the novel, Grazina asks Hai, who is giving her a bath, if he'll undress for once so she doesn't feel like I'm some patient. Hai steps out of his boxers and Grazina looks at him, the relationship silently equalized. But it's another type of found family that this novel even more deeply explores. That is, the often fleeting but intense one that sometimes emerges through work.

About midway through the novel, Grazina asks Hai, who is giving her a bath, if he'll undress for once so she doesn't feel like I'm some patient. Hai steps out of his boxers and Grazina looks at him, the relationship silently equalized. But it's another type of found family that this novel even more deeply explores. That is, the often fleeting but intense one that sometimes emerges through work.

About midway through the novel, Grazina asks Hai, who is giving her a bath, if he'll undress for once so she doesn't feel like I'm some patient. Hai steps out of his boxers and Grazina looks at him, the relationship silently equalized. But it's another type of found family that this novel even more deeply explores. That is, the often fleeting but intense one that sometimes emerges through work.

Hive finds a job at a local fast, casual restaurant... called Home Market, although he quickly catches on that at Home Market, made by hand meant heating up the contents of a bag of mushy food cooked nearly a year ago in a laboratory outside Des Moines and vacuum sealed in industrial resin sacks.

Hive finds a job at a local fast, casual restaurant... called Home Market, although he quickly catches on that at Home Market, made by hand meant heating up the contents of a bag of mushy food cooked nearly a year ago in a laboratory outside Des Moines and vacuum sealed in industrial resin sacks.

Hive finds a job at a local fast, casual restaurant... called Home Market, although he quickly catches on that at Home Market, made by hand meant heating up the contents of a bag of mushy food cooked nearly a year ago in a laboratory outside Des Moines and vacuum sealed in industrial resin sacks.

There are pages of wry and often compassionate catalogs here describing the routines of High and his fellow workers, as well as the drugs they take to get through the pain and exhaustion of those routines. Every day, this crew spends more of their waking hours with each other than they do with anyone else. One result is that they can sniff each other's presence.