Washoe County Library System

"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in...

"Sonya used to perform on stage. She used to attend glamorous parties, date handsome men, ride in fast cars. But somewhere along the way, the stage lights Sonya lived for dimmed for good. And then, in their absence, came darkness--blackouts, empty cupboards, hazy nights she can't remember. Haunted by her failed career and unresolved childhood trauma, Sonya has fallen deep into an alcoholic abyss. What keeps Sonya from losing herself completely is...

"An epic novel about a son, the mother who left him as a child, and how his search to uncover the secrets of her life leads him to reclaim his own"--

"Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay to adopt a baby--and to see his elderly mother for the first time in several years. Discovering that she is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt for not realizing just how sick she has become. His unexpected appearance and assiduous attention revives her and...

Jack's mother agrees that he may have a pet, but when he suggests everything from an elephant to a tyrranosaurus rex, she must explain why each would be less than ideal.

Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence.

Presents a literary memoir of poems and essays that reflect on the author's complicated feelings about his disadvantaged childhood on a Native American reservation with his siblings and alcoholic mother. A searing, deeply moving memoir about family, love, loss, and forgiveness from the critically acclaimed, bestselling National Book Award-winning author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Hired to assist a famed reclusive writer trying to recapture her lost fortunes by completing a new manuscript, Alice Whitley becomes obsessed with identifying the paternity of her employer's precocious young son.

Plagued with unpleasant memories of his mother's death, shy Gerard Freeman is obsessed with the manuscript of a century-old ghost story written by his great-grandmother and entrusted to his care.

In an inspirational debut novel by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Charles "Chick" Benetto, grieving over the death of his mother, uses alcohol as a crutch to deal with his loneliness, isolation, and depression and the disintegration of his life, until an encounter with his mother's ghost brings him new awareness and leads him to attempt to put his life back together.