Ocean Vuong
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And I saw that and I told myself, that can't be my American life.
This man works from 3 p.m.
to 12 a.m.
I never see him.
I look into his room.
I see a tuft of black hair out of his blanket.
That can't be me.
But if you asked him, how did you spend your American life?
He's retired now.
He would have said,
That is his absolute triumph.
That was, he lucked out, right?
He would tell us this.
He said, he would convince me to go work.
And he said, gosh, it's amazing.
This is it.
Not everybody, and he wasn't wrong.
He was not wrong.
So I think that's why I wrote this book, because I think everyone around me wanted stories about poor people who got out of their situation so that the reader feels good.
I just was not interested in writing a novel where, like, to make rich people feel good about poor people, right?