Ocean Vuong told Björk he didn’t think THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS would sell—and now it’s an Oprah Book Club pick

"I told my editors that this is my slump book. (laughter) I don’t know if it’s going to do well. It doesn’t do any of the things that American fiction usually depends on to sell units. There’s no thing to grab at the end. When you buy a bag of potato chips, you at least know you’ll get sixteen ounces of potato chips, whereas I can’t promise that anybody will get anything from this book."