A review by giordana
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

the vulnerability in this collection…. the boldness…

in his exploration of human existence, vuong emphasizes the role of his family, his roots— how he came to be. at one point he writes from the perspective of his own mother talking to him in the womb. putting himself in his mother’s mind must’ve been so emotional; this especially stood out to me thinking about his relationship with his mother that i read about in “on earth we’re briefly gorgeous”

in contrast to this deep, complex illustration of family, he also talks about his family in blatant terms: “an american soldier fucked a vietnamese farmgirl. thus my mother exists. thus i exist. no bombs = no family = no me.” i admire the way that he is able to think about his existence in both complex and simple terms — neither of them is more or less true or important

i gasped out loud when vuong quoted jeffrey dahmer at the beginning of “into the breach.” it’s hard to wrap my head around that one; out of context, dahmer’s words seem almost relatable— and how disturbing is that? he’s not afraid to draw attention to the uncomfortable idea that we share aspects of humanity with someone so evil

these are only my initial observations; this collection made me think so much and i’ll keep coming back to it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War