Join Keep St. Pete Lit, a local organization that supports the literary community, for a book club connecting the visual and literary arts.  Each month’s featured book will relate to the MFA’s collection or special exhibitions.

September 12th: On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” is Ocean Vuong’s second debut. His first, as poet, was spectacular and met with wide praise, even garnering comparisons to Emily Dickinson. The structural conceit of this debut novel is ostensibly a letter written from a son, Little Dog, to his mother, Ma, containing a lengthy essayistic meditation on Tiger Woods’s Asian heritage, his thoughts on Duchamp’s “Fountain,” and plenty of literary musings on figures like Roland Barthes. Little Dog was born in Vietnam, but his family flees as refugees to Hartford when he was just a toddler, raised primarily by his struggling mother who clings to their native tongue. Paying homage to his heritage while elevating the art of memoir to contemporary norms is deftly handled, even with the most challenging of subjects.

Free with admission, $10 on Thursdays after 5:00 p.m.