QCL Book Club is back for July, and this month we’re readingThe Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong.
📖About The Emperor of Gladness (T/W for mention of suicide)
College dropout Hai doesn’t know how to face the future until a chance meeting with elderly widow Grazina changes his life. 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. 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.
🌈 About QCL Book Club
Join a friendly and like-minded group of book-loving LGBTQ+ creatives, to discuss a classic and diverse range of queer texts.
We read one book per month and meet once a month on the last Tuesday of every month at ARC Collective in Islington.
🫂Accessibility
We are a neurodivergent and disability friendly book club and aim to make our meetings as accessible as possible! There is no pressure to speak during meetings if you don’t wish to, or to finish text before meetings if this isn’t possible.
We also have first aiders and mental health first aiders present at each event.
If you have any access needs you’d like to discuss before attending, or if you have any other questions, please get in touch! You can contact us on our Instagram @queercreativeslondon or via email at events@queercreativeslondon.co.uk
If you have a ticket but are unable to attend, please return your ticket ASAP, so that someone else can come in your place.