"The Emperor of Gladness" | Reviewed by William Winkler

Nineteen-year-old Hai, his mind curdled by opioid addiction, stands on a bridge, gazing down at the river swirling below him, contemplating suicide. A voice from a ramshackle house on the river’s edge calls to him, prompting him to leave his perch.

The voice is that of Grazina, a Lithuanian widow. Grazina convinces Hai to abandon his contemplation of death. Essentially homeless, he moves into her house and grows into becoming her caretaker and confidant.

Ocean Vuong’s second novel, “The Emperor of Gladness,” chronicles the next year in Hai’s life. Estranged from his mother, he leaves their home and convinces her he has moved to Boston to begin training as a doctor, even though he dropped out of college in his first year. He maintains this illusion through occasional phone calls laced with fictional accounts of his studies and activities.

Hai supports himself and his habit by raiding his hostess’s seemingly endless and forgotten stash of painkillers prescribed over the years. He also finds employment in a fast-casual diner, part of an Iowa-based chain that supplies information on making day-old mac and cheese appear to be freshly prepared.

Each of Hai’s co-workers at the diner is searching, like Hai himself, for meaning in life, including his boss who maintains a side identity as a female professional wrestler.

Ocean Vuong broke onto the literary scene as a poet in 2016 with his collection “Night Sky with Exit Wounds.” Like many poets who venture into novel writing, his book is heavy on evocative language and emotional depth for its impact, relegating the development of story arc to a secondary level.

While there are a few autobiographical elements to the novel, its author does not appear to be attempting to base the plot on his own life, but rather calls on his life experiences to develop his characters and their relationships with one another.

“The Emperor of Gladness” is a tribute to the importance of hope, and the value of the search for its fulfillment.

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