On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
by Emily Nagin
From the Archives: “Art needs to be honest. Sometimes, it’s the only pure honesty you’ll get all day.” Emily Nagin reviews Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
From the Archives: “Art needs to be honest. Sometimes, it’s the only pure honesty you’ll get all day.” Emily Nagin reviews Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
From the Archives: “I think characters resist being known in the way real people do. When I start to construct a character, I never begin with their deep dark secrets or biggest fears or hidden shame. I usually start with the surface details—physical features, occupation, interests—and over time, I learn the things the character secretly wants or hates or tries to hide.”
From the Archives: On our delayed discovery of Lucia Berlin and what we miss when we miss independent presses.
From the Archives: “Farrar, Straus and Giroux published Welcome Home alongside a new collection of Lucia Berlin’s short stories, Evening in Paradise, on the same day as the midterm elections last week. A knowing wink from the publisher to the politics that these books contain? Perhaps.”
From the Archives: Why invent a dystopia when there are so many real dystopias out there in the world already?
From the Archives: What do the 2011 Japanese Tsunami, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and one family’s personal heartbreak have in common? For Ellen Prentiss Campbell, the answer lies in Pearl S. Buck’s 1948 young adult novel, The Big Wave, and the individual acts of creative defiance that help survivors not only carry on, but value life’s beauty more highly because they know it will not last.
From the Archives: “Trusting the mind and imagination to work in concert as we explore the author/character vortex is no grave sin—provided that we let both mind and imagination do their jobs in peace…”
From the Archives: “When structure is done well, it should be like architecture: you sense the overall feel of the building—tall, or airy, or strong—but you’re not looking at the buttresses that hold it up or the seams where parts are fastened together.”
“You will find yourself returning to these characters time and again, reconsidering the little choices that make your own life what it is.” Sophia Khan on Joann Smith’s debut collection, A Heaven of Their Choosing.
Countless writers aspire to contribute something lasting to literature. We labor over drafts. We seek innovative forms. We push ourselves to evoke particularities in tone, plot, character, circumstance, and word choice. Yet in these various pursuits, we might overlook what also endures: literary references.
