About the Book: The Emperor of Gladness
'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
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness,
Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting
rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice
belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him
to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her
caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops