Podcast Summary

All Of It – Get Lit Preview: Ocean Vuong on The Emperor of Gladness

Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guest: Ocean Vuong
Date: January 6, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Alison Stewart sits down with acclaimed poet and novelist Ocean Vuong to preview his latest novel, The Emperor of Gladness—the January selection for the "Get Lit With All Of It" book club. The conversation dives deep into the book’s central characters, themes of survival, addiction, memory, intergenerational trauma, and the realities of immigrant life in America. Vuong draws personal connections between his own experience and those of his characters, offering moving insights on resilience in the face of hardship.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Genesis of Hai's Crisis

• The bridge scene: The main character, Hai, contemplates suicide on a bridge, mirroring a harrowing family experience from Vuong's past.
• Not a grand reason for despair:
  • (01:59) "I think often we think people who are at the end of the line need to have a grand reason. But... sometimes we lose steam... and for me I wanted this character to also arrive when things run out of options, rather than some sort of absolute sadness." — Ocean Vuong
• Vuong shares about his uncle's suicide, emphasizing that despair can be gradual, not always dramatic.

2. Grisina/Gershina: The Elderly Lifeline

• Grisina’s character: An elderly woman with dementia who encounters Hai on the verge of ending his life and becomes his charge.
• America as a land of layered wars:
  • (03:30) "To me, America is a layered place of war. These folks are ejected from geopolitical ruptures, and yet they find each other in the same room. And they realize their histories are not so far apart." — Ocean Vuong
• Based on truth: Grisina is inspired by Gerjina Versalis, a real woman from Vuong's life, whom he cared for while in college.
  • (04:32) "Gerjina Versalis was an incredible person who I lived with while I was studying at Brooklyn College...I tended to her needs, experiencing frontal lobe dementia." — Ocean Vuong

3. Memory, Dementia, and the Art of Fiction

• Following someone else’s reality:
  • (05:11) "Living with someone with chronic mental illness, you have to follow their reality...I had to follow her fictive propulsions and I would have to make up the world alongside her." — Ocean Vuong
• Vuong connects this experience to the construction of fiction—how memory and invention entwine.

4. Author Reading: Introducing Hai

• [06:07] Vuong reads from the novel, painting Hai’s background from postwar Vietnam to struggling immigrant in Hartford, Connecticut.
  • (06:07) "When he was younger, Hai wanted a bigger life. Instead, he got the life that won’t let him go..."
  • The excerpt details hardships in Vietnam, the trauma of migration, and Hai’s drift into addiction as he returns home after dropping out of college.

5. Addiction & American Narratives of Transformation

• Addiction as coping:
  • (09:30) "They provide a coping mechanism to the idea of dashed hopes and dreams, which is what I'm deeply interested in as a novelist." — Ocean Vuong
• Subversion of the redemptive arc:
  • (10:13) "This is not a healing narrative...the protagonist would not kick his habit...it is people as they are, and they transform. They do, but without change. That’s deeply important to me because so much of American life is static. But it does not mean that it is doomed." — Ocean Vuong
• The conversation critiques the myth of the dramatic “escape” or “triumph” in American storytelling, emphasizing instead the dignity of surviving, not necessarily thriving.

6. Resettlement, Community, and Precarity

• Lack of agency for immigrants/refugees:
  • (11:32) "So much of our life was out of our hands. We couldn’t plan where we were heading...We were taken into the Baptist church, given free food...the Black community in Hartford knew we were heading into America, that we had to quickly understand in order to survive." — Ocean Vuong
• Vuong movingly recounts the role Hartford’s Black and brown communities played in helping his family settle, highlighting inter-community solidarity.
• Stark improvements still coexist with precarity:
  • (13:16) "My grandmother coming to the window...she said, 'Look, the windows open and close with locks. We did it. There’s glass. Look how sturdy.' Mind you, we were in a refugee camp with a tin roof two months prior..." — Ocean Vuong

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• (01:59) Ocean Vuong on the unremarkable but real push to the edge:
  "We often believe there should be a dramatic reason...sometimes we lose steam."
• (03:30) On shared legacies of violence in America:
  "America's most promising moment for itself is recognizing that it is a history of war. And from those wars, it is also a history of life and life-building."
• (05:11) On living with dementia and fiction-making:
  "Who am I to say that her reality was any less real than mine?"
• (10:13) On the non-triumphant narrative:
  "This is not a healing narrative...people as they are, and they transform, but without change."
• (11:32) On immigrant adaptation and community solidarity:
  "We were taken into the Baptist church, given free food...they saw the precarity of our situation more clearly than we ever did."

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:30] - Introduction to the novel and book club announcement
• [01:59] - Vuong on suicide, hope, and starting points for fiction
• [03:30] - Discussion of Grisina’s backstory and American history
• [04:32] - Real-life inspiration for Grisina
• [05:10-05:54] - On living with dementia and its literary lessons
• [06:07-09:11] - Author reading: Hai’s background and struggles
• [09:30-11:06] - Addiction, coping, breaking the “healing” narrative
• [11:32-13:59] - Immigration, lack of control, and cross-cultural alliances

Episode Tone & Language

The conversation is compassionate, reflective, and candid. Vuong brings a poetic attentiveness to trauma, resilience, and everyday survival, always linking personal history to broader cultural patterns. Both interviewer and guest focus on empathy and the dignity of real, marginalized experience—often challenging familiar American narratives about redemption, transformation, and “success.”

Quick Recap

• The Emperor of Gladness tells the story of Hai, a Vietnamese American navigating despair and addiction in a post-industrial Connecticut town, and his unlikely bond with Grisina, an elderly woman with dementia.
• Ocean Vuong draws on his own trauma, caretaking experiences, and immigrant background to create nuanced, authentic characters.
• The discussion subverts standard “healing” arcs in fiction, focusing on static but meaningful forms of endurance and community.
• Uplifting moments of generosity across communities are foregrounded, especially among refugees and Black and brown neighborhoods in Hartford.

For more information and access to the novel for the Get Lit club, visit wnyc.org/getlit.