THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Heartbreaking heartwarming yet unsentimental and
savagely comic all at the same time' Guardian READERS ARE OBSESSED WITH THE EMPEROR OF
GLADNESS: 'Read it slowly. Let it wreck you. Then read it again' 'I feel like I lost part of
my soul to this book... a contender for my favourite of the year' 'I would give it 6 stars if I
could' 'Sad and funny devastating and quietly celebratory' 'A masterwork of compassion and
complexity. A book to sit with to feel deeply and to return to' College dropout Hai doesn't
know how to face the future until a chance meeting with elderly widow Grazina changes his life
in this achingly beautiful novel about chosen family and second chances One summer evening in
the town of East Gladness Connecticut nineteen-year-old Hai stands on a bridge ready to jump
when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina an elderly widow
succumbing to dementia. Over the course of the year the unlikely pair develops a life-altering
bond. The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which our lives are changed by the
most unexpected of people. When Hai takes a job at a diner to support himself and Grazina his
fellow workers become the family he didn't expect to find. United by desperation and
circumstance and existing on the fringes of society together they bear witness to each
other's survival. This is an unforgettable story of unexpected friendship and how far we would
go to possess one of life's most fleeting mercies: a second chance. A Most Anticipated Book
in Guardian Financial Times Sunday Times Style BBC GQ New York Times and AnOther
'Some of the most beautiful writing I've experienced in my lifetime' OPRAH WINFREY
'Perfectly tuned... May well be the first millennial Great American Novel' ArtReview 'A
fine-grained social panorama driven by the developing camaraderie of an ensemble cast bonded in
precariousness and pain' Observer 'His most vivid ambitious work yet' Dazed 'This stunning
book moved me so much I fell in love with its characters and grieved their absence in my life
when I turned the last page' CAITRÍONA BALFE 'A poetic dramatic and vivid story. It has an
epic sweep but it also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality' COLM
TÓIBÍN
