"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 Vietnam -- and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between...

"Deena starts receiving letters from her older sister Mandy, whom everyone thinks is dead, claiming that their family's blighted history is actually a curse and leading Deena on a cross-country hunt to find her sister and heal their family's rotten past--or rip it apart forever"--