Creating a Sense of Place

 One of the books that most captivated me I'm 2025 was Ocean Vuong's most recent novel The Emperor of Gladness. The story of Hai, a young Vietnamese American, opens with a rich description of East Gladness, Connecticut, the town where he lives. Even before Vuong introduces readers to his quirky cast of characters, who become chosen family, he sets the stage.

As I read the opening chapter, I thought about how readers sometimes skim over the descriptive passages, eager to get to the action, as if it's no more than filler. I know I've probably done the same. But Vuong drew me in immediately, making real a place I've never visited--in a state I've never visited. The introduction felt like a promise that the writing to come would measure up; it did. I often forget a lot about books I read, once I've moved on, but I have clear images of the streets and businesses of East Gladness. I know the little house Hai ends up sharing with Grazina, the elderly Lithuanian immigrant who essentially saves his life while she is losing her grasp on her on. Vuong's insight into human nature proves as keen as his eye for the details of the place in which he sets his story. 

Patrick Ryan's novel Buckeye, my first book completed in 2026, began similarly, with a description of the fictional town of Bonhomie, Ohio. The description of the town in the early part of the twentieth century bore no resemblance to East Gladness, CT, but if literary descriptions were works of visual art, the two chapters would hang in the same wing of the museum. As the characters grow up and grow old, the change in the town is reflected: the hardware store where Cal works for his father-in-law increases in size, the plant where Felix Salt worked in management before he left for the war also thrives; neighborhoods grow and merge, so that when Margaret Salt returns after a twenty-year absence, she is aware of the changes in a way that those who never left may be unaware. The reader takes note.

When teaching reading or writing, I often talked about how setting can be very specific--Bonhomie, OH, from WWII through the Vietnam war--or general--long ago and far away. The latter lets readers pick and choose from their own memories or imagination; the former can take a fictional time and place and set the reader right down in the middle of it. When done well--as in these two novels--it works.

Creating a Sense of Place

Summer Reading Report: Top of the List

With conflicting priorities, I am woefully behind on my book posts, so without further apologies, excuses, or alibis, I will share some of my most recent favorites--in reverse order as I have read them.

Sometimes I read a book and I want to tell everyone I know to read it; others I know are perfect for some of my reading friends and not for others. I find it hard to put into words why I enjoyed Ocean Vuong's The Emperor of Gladness so much, but from the beginning in which the narrator painted the setting, the town of East Gladness, Connecticut, I was captivated. 

Hai, the protagonist of the story, is the son of a Vietnamese single mother, who believes he is in medical school (even though he dropped out of undergrad). He was, instead, in rehab. At the beginning of the story, as he stands on a bridge, ready to jump, he is stopped by Grazina, an elderly Lithuanian suffering from a number of maladies, not the least of which is dementia. She insists he not jump, invites him into her home, and changes the trajectory of his life.

One review referred to the book as the story of "chosen family," and indeed, he find just such connections at a local restaurant that holds itself in higher esteem that it deserves. Hai's co-workers are characters without sliding into caricatures. Vuong's insight into these humans he created moved me. The story was, in turns, heartbreaking and uplifting. His relationship with Grazina, who provides him a place to live in exchange for his help, is both humorous and poignant. When flashbacks send her back to her girlhood, escaping from enemy soldiers, rather than trying to convince her she is mistaken, he takes on the persona of Sgt. Pepper (the name of his restaurant's local rival pizza joint) navigating her through the landscapes of her imagination. 

He also shows empathy for his cousin Sony, who works at the Homemarket restaurant where he finds employment. Sony, who exists somewhere on the autism spectrum, lives in a group home because his mother is in jail with a bail they can't scrape together. Vuong surrounds Hai with flawed and broken people who forge a bond to replace missing familial relationships. The author develops the disparate characters gradually, so that even those most prone to stereotyping come to life. "Heartwarming" is an adjective that is too often a code word for "sappy" or "overly sentimental." This story, with its quirky cast and the author's masterful command of language, literally warmed my heart.

Another recent favorite is Virginia Evans' The Correspondent, an epistolary novel. The letters are exchanged between protagonist Sybil Van Antwerp, a woman in her 70s who has carried on correspondence with friends, family, and even strangers for her whole life. Through the letters Sybil writes and those she receives in response, Evans weaves the story of a life.

Sybil is alone, divorced from the father of her children after the loss of a young son and now estranged or at least distanced from her two remaining children. Whether she is writing to her best friend (and sister-in-law) or the customer service agent she encounters at a company based on Ancestry.com, she asks. "What are you reading?" 

She exchanges letters with authors Ann Patchett (yes, she uses the correct address for Parnassus Books), Joan Didion, and Larry McMurtry. She wages a campaign with a newly appointed university department chair to allow her to audit course, and she exchanges communications with her elderly neighbor and with a Texan gentleman eager to court her. Through the letters, readers learn of her role as assistant to a prominent judge, her family trauma, and her failing eyesight. Sybil Van Antwerp models how to live and to age with grace, forgiveness, and --yes, with love.

Wally Lamb took a long hiatus between books--almost ten years. Honestly, at times I found reading The River Is Waiting painful. Lamb certainly doesn't handle his characters with kid gloves. He lets them walk right into the most unimaginable circumstances. Corby Ledbetter, his protagonist, ends up in prison as the result of a tragic accident that took the life of one of his twins. 

The majority of the narrative takes place behind bars. I was not surprised to learn that Lamb had spent time teaching in a prison. The dynamics between prisoners and the staff are fraught with trauma and with connections. When he has the opportunity to showcase his artistic ability, he not only draws approval but resentment. He is a witness to and victim of unspeakable violence and injustice, but must work within the system. 

At times, I wondered if I could keep reading, but I could not stop. Lamb is a master at storytelling. He builds characters and develops plots that keep readers engaged but guessing. Lamb offers no neatly tied resolutions, but he makes readers believe the story he spins.

Amid all the nonfiction, I found myself captivated by Barbara Demick's Daughters of the Bamboo Grove. The author takes a microscopic look at a rural Chinese family at odds with the one-child laws. When one daughter is taken by the Family Planning Commission, the parents have no idea where she was taken or what recourse they have. Demick alternates between a close examination of this one family's story and a wide-angle view of some of the deception that abounds and the impact of well-meaning adoptive parents. The author's research spans many years, and she finally brings together the birth family and the daughter who remained in China with her twin sister and the American family who raised her.

Demick handles the story fairly and truthfully. She models integrity as she interacts with the two daughters and the families who raised them, opening the door to a future relationship. 

This post is a drop in the bucket of my recent reading, but it's a start. Stay tuned for more.

Summer Reading Report: Top of the List