Ocean Vuong's Novel 'Emperor of Gladness'

Summary

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Podcast Summary: All Of It – Ocean Vuong’s Novel ‘Emperor of Gladness’

Date: December 29, 2025
Host: Alison Stewart, WNYC
Guest: Ocean Vuong, author and poet

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Episode Overview

In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart discusses Ocean Vuong’s acclaimed second novel, Emperor of Gladness, set in the post-industrial fictional town of East Gladness, Connecticut. The conversation delves into Vuong’s personal inspirations for the novel, themes of survival, community, memory, and the everyday acts of kindness that make life meaningful. Vuong reflects on his own experiences as both a caretaker and immigrant, and reads from the novel, offering listeners insight into the emotional landscape of his protagonist, Hai.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Origins of Hai’s Crisis

• Why does Hai contemplate suicide?

  • Vuong describes how suicidality is often not about a grand, dramatic reason but rather the slow exhaustion of options and hope.
  • Quote:
    “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, 01:44)
  • Inspired by Vuong’s own family history, particularly his uncle’s suicide:
    “In his letter... he said something to the extent of 'I just had enough of it,' as if he was pushing something away. That really struck me.” (Ocean Vuong, 01:54)

• Exploring survival beyond crisis

  • Vuong is interested in what happens after someone chooses not to die—what living day-to-day looks like after such a turning point.
  • Quote:
    "I'm interested in what happens on day two, day three, day 20. A question that I never really got to ask my uncle because that's a really vexed place to have no hope." (Ocean Vuong, 02:36)

2. Grisina: The Unexpected Lifeline

• Character description and inspiration

  • Grisina is a Lithuanian survivor of WWII and Stalinism, now elderly and fighting dementia. She becomes the catalyst for Hai’s recovery through their unlikely caregiving relationship.
  • Quote:
    "A survivor, a quintessential American, having fled Stalin in World War II and arrived in America...Meeting Hai, who survived the Vietnam War...America is a layered place of war." (Ocean Vuong, 03:15)
  • Grisina is directly based on a real woman Vuong cared for in his college years, infusing the novel with lived experience.
    "Gergina 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, 04:17)

• Lessons from caregiving

  • Living with someone with dementia shaped Ocean's approach to fiction and empathy, teaching him to “follow her reality” and respect her unique world.
  • Quote:
    "Living with someone with chronic mental illness, you have to follow their reality. And it became actually a really foundational lesson in fiction to me because I realized that she was inventing in and remembering all at once." (Ocean Vuong, 04:56)

3. Themes of Shame, Belonging & Community Kindness

• Why is Hai hesitant to accept help?

  • Due to internalized shame and the feeling of being undeserving, particularly for marginalized people.
  • Quote:
    "For so many folks who are on the margins of society, there is so much inherent shame about where we should belong... Why would a stranger let me have a place to live and stay?" (Ocean Vuong, 06:01)

• Transforming purpose through service

  • The narrative centers not on a heroic arc but on small, often unnoticed acts of care—for others and oneself.
  • "He could be more useful to her than he was ever useful to himself. ...maybe that is an accretion of the will to live, rather than a big central thesis that we so hunger for in this culture." (Ocean Vuong, 06:40)

• Being needed as a reason to go on

  • Quote:
    "Your place is actually forgetting that you were at the end of your rope because you’re at the beginning of someone’s need." (Ocean Vuong, 07:20)
  • Explores the notion: What do we owe each other, and how do we exhibit immense kindness without hope?

4. Place as Character: East Gladness

• Why extensive description of the town?

  • Contrasts the advice to “grab the reader” with instead immersing them in place—since environment forms people’s lives and stories.
  • Quote:
    "To me, place is meaning. The place that we grow up is the plot. It makes us who we are. It will determine how we talk to each other, how we value each other, and how we understand the world." (Ocean Vuong, 12:04)

• Pacing of the narrative

  • Deliberately spends seven pages on “a town with no people, no action” to let setting itself become central.

5. Books, Language, and Intergenerational Gaps

• What do books mean to Hai (and Ocean)?

  • Books are both a source of pride and pain: pride for being able to read and write, grief because it’s inaccessible for some immigrant parents.
  • Quote:
    "My own mother would see me read and be filled with grief. ...She saw me read and realized that that ship has sailed for her." (Ocean Vuong, 13:33)
  • The act of reading is intimate, sometimes private, and a bridge between worlds.

• Language as connection

  • Quote:
    "With language, as is happening right now, we go all the way through with words. There is no other medium in our species where we can go all the way through except with sound." (Ocean Vuong, 14:43)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On survival:
  “Sometimes we lose steam. ...I wanted this character to also arrive when things run out of options.” (01:44)
• On intergenerational trauma:
  "America is a layered place of war. These folks are ejected from geopolitical ruptures, and yet they find each other in the same room." (03:15)
• On empathy learned from caregiving:
  “She was inventing in and remembering all at once...who am I to say that her reality was any less real than mine?” (04:56)
• On community:
  “A community is an extension of a kind of webbed kinship.” (06:26)
• On small acts:
  “It’s the small instances, the small moments...You move forward until you realize you have a place.” (07:17–07:20)
• On books in immigrant families:
  “I stopped reading in front of her. It felt like a kind of mocking. I started to read much more privately.” (13:44)
• On language:
  “With language, as is happening right now, we go all the way through with words...” (14:43)

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Important Timestamps

• [01:44] – On the everyday reality of despair, not grand tragedy
• [03:15] – Introducing Grisina, personal and historical inspiration
• [04:17] – Vuong’s real-life caregiving experience and its effect on writing
• [06:01] – Hai’s internalized shame and offer of help
• [07:20] – The philosophical core: moving past one’s own crisis by becoming necessary to someone else
• [10:34] – Vuong’s reading from the novel: Hai’s backstory, family immigration, and struggles
• [12:04] – The role of setting and place in the novel
• [13:44] – On the complexity of reading in an immigrant family
• [14:43] – Language as the deepest mode of connection

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Conclusion

Ocean Vuong’s conversation on All Of It is a candid, moving exploration of life on the margin—spanning trauma, the meaning of small acts, and the lifelong quest for belonging and kindness. Through intimate anecdote and philosophical reflection, Vuong extends the novel’s themes beyond the book, inviting listeners into a deeper consideration of what we owe each other—and the power of “moving forward until you realize you have a place.”

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Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. For today's show, we chose the top books of the year according to our Instagram followers. And it turns out our followers have great taste. Their next selection was named one of the best books of the year by Time and NPR and Kirkus Reviews. That book is the Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Huang. The story is set in East Gladness, Connecticut, a post industrial town that has seen better days. Our main character, Hai, has had a chance to make it out and go on to college, but that didn't pan out. So now he's back in town and back to taking pills. He lied to his mom about getting into medical school. She thinks he's in Boston. One night, Hai decides to end his own life. But before he can jump off a bridge, an elderly woman named Grisina spots him. She convinces him to come down. Soon Hai has become her live in caregiver. Grisina is struggling with dementia. Also central to the novel are the eccentric employees of a fast casual restaurant called Home Market. Hai works there. Despite the monotony of the job, the staff finds meaning in caring for their neighbors. Ocean was inspired to write this novel by some details from his own life, including his time working at Boston Market. I began the conversation with Ocean Vuong by asking him what brings Hai to the bridge that night when he contemplates taking his own life.

[Ocean Vuong]

I think often we, we think people who are at the end of the line need to have a grand reason. But when my, my own uncle took his own life in 2012, he was 28, I was 24. So he was like a brother to me. We grew up in this country, we were in the refugee camps together. And when he, in his letter, I'll just paraphrase it, he said something to the extent of I just had enough of it, as if he was pushing something away. And that really struck me because we often believe there should be a dramatic reason that this is not enough. 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. And we often see the suicide as a kind of triumph when they step off the bridge and God willing, they do. But I'm interested in what happens on day two, day three, day 20. A question that I never really got to ask my uncle because that's a really vexed place to have no hope.

[Interviewer 2]

And yet decide to live.

[Ocean Vuong]

How do you go forward? That, to me is a wonderful place to start A fiction project.

[Interviewer 3]

Well, fortunately, has Gracchina, this older woman, in his life. How would you describe her?

[Ocean Vuong]

A survivor, a quintessential American, having fled Stalin in World War II and arrived in America in the 40s and 50s and tried to make a life. And then meeting Hai, who survived the Vietnam War. And 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 that their histories are not so far apart, unlike the white picket fence or the grand city on the hill. To me, America's most promising moment for itself is recognizing that it is a history of war. And from those wars it is. It is also a history of life and life building.

[Interviewer 3]

This character of Gershina is based on a real woman that you knew. You spent some time with her. Who was the real woman and what was your relationship like?

[Ocean Vuong]

Gergina Versalis was an incredible person who I lived with while I was studying at Brooklyn College. I lived with her in Richmond Hill, and I was her caretaker. She was a friend of mine's grandmother, and that was how I made it through college. I lost my housing when I dropped.

[Interviewer 2]

Out of Pace University. So when I signed up to Brooklyn.

[Ocean Vuong]

College to study English, I still didn't have a means or a place to stay. And she took me in, essentially, and I tended to her needs. Experiencing frontal lobe dementia.

[Interviewer 2]

I didn't know what it was.

[Ocean Vuong]

I remember googling WebMD, what dementia was. And to me, I had to follow her. You know, I had no right with all of my faculties to demand or correct her. Living with someone with chronic mental illness, you have to follow their reality. And it became actually a really foundational lesson in fiction to me because I realized that she was inventing in and remembering all at once. And so much of my own work is about memory and invention at the same time. And who am I to say that her reality was any less real than mine? So I would follow her fictive propulsions and I would have to make up.

[Interviewer 2]

The world alongside her.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah, in the book, I think he hears her singing and she's like, I'm not singing. She's like, okay, well, go that you're not singing. You know, it's interesting in the book that he's not quite sure she means that he should come live with her. Why is he confused by that initially?

[Ocean Vuong]

I think for so many folks who are on the margins of society, there is so much inherent shame about where we should belong and where we should have access to. And so when she offers a place to stay for him, he almost thinks he mishears her. And part of that is internalized shame. Why would a stranger let me have a place to live and stay? And I think what I'm interested in this book is the things that we owe each other, even when society tells us we're not supposed to. In many places, we're supposed to just owe things to our family and friends. But I do believe a community is an extension of a kind of webbed kinship. And in this sense, she realized he's at the end of his rope. And he quickly realizes that he could be more useful to her than he was ever useful to himself. And perhaps instead of a grand arc of finding reason to live, it's actually realizing the minute, mundane actions that we are actually much more helpful to someone next to us. And maybe that is an accretion of. Of the will to live, rather than a big central thesis that we so hunger for in this culture.

[Alison Stewart]

Just the small instances, the small moments.

[Ocean Vuong]

You move forward until you realize you have a place. And your place is actually forgetting that you were at the end of your rope because you're at the beginning of someone's need. And to me, that's a deep philosophical issue that I'm working through my fiction to understand. What do we owe each other? And how do we exhibit immense kindness without hope?

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is author and poet Ocean Vuong. His new title is titled the Emperor of Gladness.

[Interviewer 3]

It's about a young man in a.

[Alison Stewart]

Small Connecticut town who becomes a caregiver.

[Interviewer 3]

For an elderly woman who has dementia.

[Alison Stewart]

Would you read a bit from your book from us? I think this section sets up sort of where Hai is in his life.

[Interviewer 3]

When we meet him.

[Ocean Vuong]

Yes.

[Interviewer 2]

When he was younger, Hai wanted a bigger life. Instead, he got the life that won't let him go. He was born in Vietnam, 14 years after the big war everyone loved talking about, but no one understood, least of all himself. The year was 1989, a year best known for the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square protests. George Bush Sr. Had defeated Michael Dukakis to be the 41st president. And my Prerogative by Bobby Brown was at the top of the charts. It was a time of the floppy disk denim jackets, leg warmers, cool ranch Doritos and pasta salad In Vietnam. The Americans had left the fields a ruinous wasteland with Monsanto powered Agent Orange. Not to mention the 2 million bodies nameless and scattered in the jungle and riverbanks, waiting to be salvaged by family members hoisting woven baskets on their waists full of sun bleached bones. On top of that, the country was fighting the genocidal Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge who were invading the western border. People starved naturally and scavenged for rats or stretched their rice rations with sawdust from the lumber yards. Two years later, by miracle or mercy, Hai and his family arrived in snow dusted Connecticut, their faces blasted and stricken, sleeping their first weeks on the floor of the Catholic church that sponsored them between the pews, using Bibles for pillows. He was only two and remembered none of it. He was raised by his mother, grandmother, rest her soul, and Aunt Kim, women spared by war in body but not in mind, and together they found a way to scavenge a life in wind blasted Hartford. Though he had his troubles, the boy couldn't say he had a bad life. After high school he got into college, the first in his family to do so, enrolling at Pace University in New York at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Although he intended to study international marketing. At the last minute, for reasons unknown to him, he switched to something called General Ed, which sounded more like the abandoned wing of a psych ward than a degree. By then he was already going steady for half a decade with the pills and spent most days in the library's basement, nodding off and reading literary periodicals and giant photography books. He once spent two hours out of his mind on a mix of cough syrup and oxy, staring at the Diane Arbus photo of the little boy clutching a grenade in Central Park. By Thanksgiving he was out of school and back in East Gladness, slumped on his mother's couch, New York City, all but a faded dream. Even now he did not understand the chain of events that led him back to this dirty old town empty handed.

[Interviewer 3]

Yeah, you spent a good deal of the time describing East Gladness. Why did you spend that amount of time, the beginning of your book, telling us about this place?

[Ocean Vuong]

Well, it's kind of antithetical to what they tell you in writing workshop, right? They tell you to grab the reader, yank them in. It's interesting, the metaphors of possession. True that we have, right. Given the history of this country and what we've done to people and bodies. But nonetheless, there's this idea that you have to grab somebody, pull somebody in and a headlock. Yeah. Just thought, I get a lot of novels sent to me as a writer and I think for me, some of them, sometimes you almost feel like they're optioning for their film option in media's rest you almost feel the film beats. And I wanted to ask the novel form to do something only the novel can do. So I spent seven pages describing this town with no people, no action. Because to me, place is meaning. The place that we grow up is the plot. It makes us who we are. It will determine how we talk to each other, how we value each other, and how we understand the world. So I really wanted to lean into that. And I think I could have only done that with a second book. You know, I don't know if I could have broken that rule successfully if it was my debut. So I like to think that I earned this maneuver to really sink in because I had the readers there that trusted me, you know, I hope that I earned my readers trust in my first book to say, you know, I'm not going to start this book on page one. Just sink in with me a little bit. Trust me if you will trust me, there's reason to stay and look at a place inexhaustibly.

[Interviewer 3]

One thing about Haye is he likes to read. We learned that books mean something to him. What do they represent?

[Ocean Vuong]

To me, the book is almost a mythical thing. And I don't mean to overhype it or to make it too mystical, but, you know, on one hand, it's part of my everyday life. I'm a teacher. I'm an educator.

[Interviewer 2]

I teach in a creative writing program.

[Ocean Vuong]

I read and write myself. On another hand, a lot of my family members have a very troubling, abject relationship to reading. And I remember my own mother would see me read and be filled with grief. I could see it on her face. And she. What she saw was at once pride that her son is doing something she never got to do, and also immense grief. She saw me read and realized that that ship has kind of sailed for her. I'm doing something that she would have loved to do if she didn't have to work and labor in a nail salon for 12 hours. A After a while, to be honest with you, I stopped reading in front of her. It felt like a kind of mocking. And I started to read much more privately. So it's a very vexed vocation for me. But it is the way into each other. Because we could touch each other, shake each other's hands, we can only get skin deep. But with language, as is happening right now, we go all the way through with words. There is no other medium in our species where we can go all the way through except with sound. And language is sound wrought with meaning.

[Interviewer 3]

That's why I love live radio. Yeah, it's how you communicate through the language towards having a conversation through going off tangents. Coming back to your book, it's kind of a beautiful thing.

[Ocean Vuong]

It cuts right through all the noise.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my conversation with author Ocean Huang. His new novel the Emperor of Gladness was named one of the best books of 2025 by N NPR, Time and Kirkus Reviews. Next hour, more books, including a novel that took 20 years to write and a memoir about Barneys. We'll be right back after a quick break. This is all of It Having the.

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