---
product_id: 719102843
title: "The Emperor of Gladness: Oprah's Book Club: A Novel"
price: "¥8048"
currency: JPY
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.jp/products/719102843-the-emperor-of-gladness-oprahs-book-club-a-novel
store_origin: JP
region: Japan
---

# The Emperor of Gladness: Oprah's Book Club: A Novel

**Price:** ¥8048
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** The Emperor of Gladness: Oprah's Book Club: A Novel
- **How much does it cost?** ¥8048 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.jp](https://www.desertcart.jp/products/719102843-the-emperor-of-gladness-oprahs-book-club-a-novel)

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## Description

The instant New York Times bestseller • Oprah’s Book Club Pick • A Goodreads Choice Awards finalist • Named a Best Book of 2025 by TIME , The New Yorker , Harper's Bazaar , USA Today , NPR, People , Christian Science Monitor , Scientific American, and Kirkus Reviews • Winner of the Nautilus Book Award • Longlisted for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence • A 2026 International Dublin Prize Finalist “Stunning . . . A heartfelt and powerful examination of those living on the fringes of society, and the unique challenges they face to survive and thrive.” —Oprah Winfrey Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive The hardest thing in the world is to live only once … One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Review: "My ghost is in pieces:" another masterpiece by Ocean Vuong - When Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous was published, the book club group I was facilitating at the time wondered if the author would be able to make the transition from poet to full-fledged novelist---because the first novel flew primarily on the wings of poetry. His second novel---The Emperor of Gladness--- does seem to lack the poetry of his first book. Nevertheless, it is poignant and powerful---and it is at its very best when the author explores the profound and touching relationship between the central protagonist Hai and the demented old woman Grazina. Grazina is, in fact, the glue that holds this book together. And yet, the novel's other characters who live in the fast-food world of Home Market, are just as significant in their own way and connect powerfully to the mood, tone and themes of the author's book. The novel does seem pretty dismal, and I was reminded again and again of its epigraph from Act 4, scene 3 of Hamlet: the true emperor of the world is the worm. "We fat ourselves for maggots." So, the world is a wasteland of sorts in which, in the end, the American Dream ends most logically in a nursing home or in a dumpster where we sit contemplating stars in the night sky that we can neither reach nor comprehend. Where is the beauty in our lives? "What good is beauty if nobody wins?" The lies we tell ourselves and one another. The delusions we use to cope with trauma, with the brutality of war and the senseless slaughter of humans and animals. The numbing realities of our existences. It is all pretty grim. But the writing is breathtaking, and many of the scenes in this novel are unforgettable and brilliant, including a pill-popping Hai (as "Sgt. Pepper") sitting in a bathtub with the demented Grazina as they take a midnight ride in a "jeep" that sweeps them across war-torn Europe on their way to the battlefields of Gettysburg. And the final section of the novel (Spring) is so powerfully imagined and rendered that the last pages of the book might leave you in tears. What are we? Who are we supposed to be? Do we ever rise above the level of our own mediocrity? What happens now? The Emperor of Gladness provides much food for thought, and I can only continue to admire its sensitive and intuitive author who is so very young and yet writes with such compassion and wisdom.
Review: Beautiful, strange and disturbing. - Well, this was a tough one; it took me about two weeks to read its 400 pages so, clearly, the story didn't propel me forward. In fact, I avoided it, even dreaded it but kept at it. I hit a turning point (or the novel did) about 200 pages into it. The whole thing was grim but beautiful, poetic and horrible all at once. My change of heart about abandoning it 200 pages in may have happened because I was told it was semi-autobiographical. That made it seem honest rather than prurient, I suppose, and I could then read the drug use, the mental illness and the dementia without cringing from it. The least I could do was honor that experience, I suppose was my thinking. The end was touching and tender but strange-

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #5,985 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #13 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books) #16 in Asian American & Pacific Islander Literature (Books) #324 in Literary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.0 out of 5 stars 10,010 Reviews |

## Images

![The Emperor of Gladness: Oprah's Book Club: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71EzqzMiadL.jpg)

## Available Options

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "My ghost is in pieces:" another masterpiece by Ocean Vuong
*by W***D on May 30, 2025*

When Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous was published, the book club group I was facilitating at the time wondered if the author would be able to make the transition from poet to full-fledged novelist---because the first novel flew primarily on the wings of poetry. His second novel---The Emperor of Gladness--- does seem to lack the poetry of his first book. Nevertheless, it is poignant and powerful---and it is at its very best when the author explores the profound and touching relationship between the central protagonist Hai and the demented old woman Grazina. Grazina is, in fact, the glue that holds this book together. And yet, the novel's other characters who live in the fast-food world of Home Market, are just as significant in their own way and connect powerfully to the mood, tone and themes of the author's book. The novel does seem pretty dismal, and I was reminded again and again of its epigraph from Act 4, scene 3 of Hamlet: the true emperor of the world is the worm. "We fat ourselves for maggots." So, the world is a wasteland of sorts in which, in the end, the American Dream ends most logically in a nursing home or in a dumpster where we sit contemplating stars in the night sky that we can neither reach nor comprehend. Where is the beauty in our lives? "What good is beauty if nobody wins?" The lies we tell ourselves and one another. The delusions we use to cope with trauma, with the brutality of war and the senseless slaughter of humans and animals. The numbing realities of our existences. It is all pretty grim. But the writing is breathtaking, and many of the scenes in this novel are unforgettable and brilliant, including a pill-popping Hai (as "Sgt. Pepper") sitting in a bathtub with the demented Grazina as they take a midnight ride in a "jeep" that sweeps them across war-torn Europe on their way to the battlefields of Gettysburg. And the final section of the novel (Spring) is so powerfully imagined and rendered that the last pages of the book might leave you in tears. What are we? Who are we supposed to be? Do we ever rise above the level of our own mediocrity? What happens now? The Emperor of Gladness provides much food for thought, and I can only continue to admire its sensitive and intuitive author who is so very young and yet writes with such compassion and wisdom.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Beautiful, strange and disturbing.
*by E***S on December 3, 2025*

Well, this was a tough one; it took me about two weeks to read its 400 pages so, clearly, the story didn't propel me forward. In fact, I avoided it, even dreaded it but kept at it. I hit a turning point (or the novel did) about 200 pages into it. The whole thing was grim but beautiful, poetic and horrible all at once. My change of heart about abandoning it 200 pages in may have happened because I was told it was semi-autobiographical. That made it seem honest rather than prurient, I suppose, and I could then read the drug use, the mental illness and the dementia without cringing from it. The least I could do was honor that experience, I suppose was my thinking. The end was touching and tender but strange-

### ⭐⭐⭐ yes, it was good
*by R***M on October 2, 2026*

Yes, it was good and it was sad at the same time. It could’ve been a little bit longer, but overall it was good.

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*Product available on Desertcart Japan*
*Store origin: JP*
*Last updated: 2026-10-10*