Summary
Chapter 1
The novel begins with a declaration that the biggest challenge is being granted only one chance to live. The narrator describes the way ghosts rise in the pale morning light like mist. After describing the natural world surrounding the town, the narrator introduces East Gladness. The residents exist on the margins of relevancy in Connecticut, but their proximity to the state's capital (12 minutes by car) connects them to the "heart of the state." The narrator continues describing the town until arriving at King Philip's Bridge, where the protagonist climbs to the edge with the intention of jumping off.
Chapter 2
The boy's suicidal plan to jump off the bridge is a last-minute decision. Before he can follow through, however, the boy sees an elderly woman struggling with her laundry. He calls out a warning to her as her sheets blow away in the wind. The woman threatens to call the police if he refuses to come down. She easily sees through the flimsy lies the boy tells to cover up his suicidal ideation, and invites him to come with her. Inside her house, the boy notices a dusty cross and owl knick-knacks. He introduces himself as Hai, and she tells him her name is Grazina. Despite insisting that he is fine and ready to leave, Hai stays in Grazina's company. She tells him the secret to happiness is to do something as bewildering as stomping on dinner rolls. After doing so, Hai finds that there is truth in this.
Grazina offers Hai shelter from the storm. In the middle of the night, he wakes to hear her singing. The next morning, they make small talk as Grazina serves latkes and carrots for breakfast. She tells him her husband died years before, and offers him a room in the house in exchange for helping her remember to take her medication. Hai accepts.
Chapter 3
Hai and Grazina fall into a rhythm as the weeks pass. He learns that she lives with dementia. They spend their days watching TV, and he makes weekly grocery runs. Grazina's dementia occasionally causes her to wake at odd times or address apparitions. This is how Hai learns about Lina, Grazina's alcoholic daughter. Hai uses the question "who is the current U.S. president?" as a litmus test for Grazina's state of mind. When Hai comes across an old bottle of painkillers, he pockets it. One stormy night, Grazina's dementia breaks through the medication designed to hold it at bay. Hai attempts to coax her back into her present mind. She cries and begs him to rescue her brother, who she sees buried under rubble. Hai sings a Vietnamese lullaby and later tells her it is a song to raise the dead.
Grazina asks what Hai dreams of doing in his life, and he shares his ambition to be a writer. She points out that one needs money to do anything in life, even pay for a funeral. When their household funds run low, Hai resolves to get a job. He walks along Route 4 until he arrives at a franchise place called HomeMarket, where his cousin Sony works.
Chapter 4
The following day, Hai returns to HomeMarket to speak to BJ, the manager. While Hai waits out back, another employee comes outside for a smoke break, describing a variety of violent sexual encounters. Sony finally comes outside with BJ, who inspects Hai for signs of drug use. After confirming that Hai is not currently high, BJ takes him inside for a tour. She explains that what differentiates HomeMarket from other fast-food chains is that HomeMarket provides an atmosphere of home-cooking and family meals. To Hai's surprise, BJ hires him on the spot. He undergoes training, which consists of watching a video and learning how to clean the bathroom, among other tasks. Sony forgets to clock Hai in, so he misses out on four hours of payment. He receives $7.15 per hour (the minimum wage).
Back at home, Grazina congratulates Hai on getting hired. She tastes the leftover cornbread that Hai brings home and announces that she has a present for him, which turns out to be her husband's old collection of books.
Chapter 5
October arrives, and Hai rides around on a bike found in Grazina's basement. He slowly grows accustomed to his shifts at HomeMarket, which consist of a structured routine. He cleans, replaces stale coffee, and heats processed frozen food designed to appear fresh. The only food actually made in-house is the cornbread. Hai describes his co-workers as typical New Englanders: "[w]eatherworn and perennially exhausted or pissed off or both." Maureen is a retired elementary school hall monitor who enjoys swearing and making strange combinations with her food. Russia, an eighteen-year-old from Tajikistan, sports a nose ring and a blue buzz cut. Amanda is known by the others as "dishwasher girl" since she barely interacts with them. Wayne is gifted in his role as "Chief of Rotisserie." Hai comes to know his coworkers by their scents alone. They experience the ups and downs of shift work together, including the stress of being slammed by crowds of diners and the aggression of racist customers.
Sony reveals that his mother's appeal was denied. Hai recalls the events that led to his employment at HomeMarket. After dropping out of college due to his drug use, he returns home, later lying to his mother that he enrolled in medical school. Instead, he checks himself into the New Hope Recovery Center for three weeks.
Analysis
The choral perspective that opens the novel establishes a collective sense of community in which the reader becomes a participant. While the rest of the narrative is focalized through Hai's point of view, the introduction acts as a panorama of East Gladness as shown by the town's ghosts. It reads like a lyrical, atmospheric overview of the town's history and surroundings. For example, vestiges of the past seem to linger in the present, as can be seen in the lines describing ghosts "searching for their names, names that no longer live in any living thing's mouth" (Chapter 1). Vuong also writes in deep time, placing the town's origins as "[w]hen the prehistoric glaciers melted" (1). Second-person address implicates the reader in the scene: "[a]s you approach, you'll be flanked by wide stretches of thumb-sized buds shooting lucent through April mud...Cross that and you'll find us. Turn right" (1).
Vuong characterizes East Gladness as both a primary destination and a marginal place. As the novel's main setting, East Gladness is established through myriad descriptions that blend urban and natural scenery. For example, a common walking path on the edge of town runs through a junkyard overgrown with weeds. Various species of plants grow or are cultivated around town. These include broadleaf tobacco, silver queen corn, cherry blossoms, ragweed, quack grass, tulips, goldenrod, birch trees, moss, and more. According to the narrator, East Gladness residents "live on the edges but die in the heart of the state" because Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, is less than 15 minutes away by car (Chapter 1). The narrator also declares that "[n]othing stops here but us," which simultaneously renders the town liminal and central since this collective "we" is the novel's main focus (1). The narrator bestows a deeper significance on the ordinary lives of the town's residents by using the word "biblical" to describe them (1).
Despite the unconventional circumstances, Hai accepts Grazina's offer to live in her house in exchange for caretaking. This includes domestic tasks like laundry and grocery runs, as well as ensuring that Grazina takes her daily medication. He eventually helps bathe her as well. Caring for another person staves off Hai's suicidal ideation. He has a newfound purpose in supporting Grazina, and draws on personal experience with his own grandmother, who suffered from schizophrenia. However, coming across an old painkiller prescription made out to Grazina's deceased husband reawakens the sleeping dragon of Hai's addiction. He pockets the drugs for later use. Though Hai's addiction does not yet hinder his caring for Grazina, Vuong foreshadows an inevitable downfall.
Hai awkwardly navigates a years-long family estrangement with his cousin, Sony. The original conflict that festered between their mothers consisted of "tensions, betrayals, refutations and backstabs," as well as the trauma of being Vietnamese refugees (Chapter 3). Hai attempts to deny their inherited feud by asking for Sony's help in securing him a job at HomeMarket. During their interaction, the cousins naturally engage in gift-giving and exchange. Hai tells Sony he wants to help pay for Sony's mother's bail, and he passes along the bag of carrots that Grazina gave him after Sony gifts him an origami bird. This shows that Hai's instincts involve helping others, even through small gestures. Though Hai needs employment and would benefit from Sony's recommendation, Hai is also motivated by the desire to bridge the distance between himself and his cousin.
HomeMarket sells not just food, but the feeling of care. This includes associations with home and family. While the food is actually engineered in labs and simply reheated at HomeMarket locations, it is designed to appear healthy and home-cooked. BJ explains this marketing strategy when she states that "[w]hen people come in here, we give them the sensation of home" (Chapter 4). This depends not only on the food served at HomeMarket, but also the family atmosphere created by the employees. In interviews, Vuong discusses the concept of "circumstantial family," which is when strangers form kinship-like bonds due to being thrown together by specific circumstances. The Emperor of Gladness centers on moments when "humanity breaches" the uniformity often required in workplaces.
