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Buford’s grandson and Little Dog’s friend and lover. Trevor lives with his father in a trailer behind the interstate in Hartford, and he meets Little Dog when he begins working on Buford’s tobacco farm. Trevor is boyishly handsome and, according to Little Dog, “impossibly American.” Trevor is “raised in the fabric and muscle of American masculinity” by his father, an alcoholic who abuses Trevor and shoots him with a nail gun. When Trevor meets Little Dog in the tobacco field, it isn’t long before their friendship turns sexual. After their first time together, Trevor turns to his back to Little Dog and cries “skillfully in the dark.” Trevor is “all-American beef but no veal”—meaning he is tough, not soft—and he is clearly ashamed of his sexuality and what it says about his masculinity. Trevor embodies stereotypical American masculinity and the effect this narrow ideal of gender and manhood has on the queer community. Trevor’s story also reflects the novel’s thematic ideas about drug addiction. As a teenager, he becomes addicted to opioid pain medication after being prescribed OxyContin for a broken ankle. For Little Dog, it is impossible to describe Trevor without also describing “the Oxy and coke,” the laced joints, and the fentanyl patches. Trevor is constantly high, and he is high when he crashes his father’s Chevy into a tree. By the time Trevor is 22, he is dead from an overdose of fentanyl and heroin. With Trevor, Vuong draws a direct parallel between drug addiction and the pharmaceutical and medical industries and underscores the reality of the opioid crisis in 21st-century American society.
Trevor Quotes in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
The On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous quotes below are all either spoken by Trevor or refer to Trevor. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 2 Quotes
Afterward, lying next to me with his face turned away, he cried skillfully in the dark. The way boys do. The first time we fucked, we didn’t fuck at all.
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“I can’t. I just—I mean…” He spoke into the wall. “I dunno. I don’t wanna feel like a girl. Like a bitch. I can’t man. I’m sorry, it’s not for me—“He paused, wiped his nose. “It’s for you. Right?”
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I don’t wanna, he said. His panting. His shaking hair. The blur of it. Please tell me I am not, he said through the sound of his knuckles as he popped them like the word But But But. And you take a step back. Please tell me I am not, he said, I am not
a faggot. Am I? Am I? Are you?
Trevor the hunter. Trevor the carnivore, the redneck, not
A pansy, shotgunner, sharpshooter, not fruit or fairy. Trevor meateater but not
veal. Never veal. Fuck that, never again after his daddy told him the story when he was seven, at the table, veal roasted with rosemary. How they were made. How the difference between veal and beef is the children. The veal are children.
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Part 3 Quotes
Trevor was into The Shawshank Redemption and Jolly Ranchers, Call of Duty and his one-eyed border collie, Mandy. Trevor who, after an asthma attack, said, hunched over and gasping, "I think I just deep-throated an invisible cock," and we both cracked up like it wasn't December and we weren't under an overpass waiting out the rain on the way home from the needle exchange. Trevor was a boy who had a name, who wanted to go to community college to study physical therapy. Trevor was alone in his room when he died, surrounded by posters of Led Zeppelin. Trevor was twenty-two. Trevor was.
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One afternoon, while watching TV with Lan, we saw a herd of buffalo run, single file, off a cliff, a whole steaming row of them thundering off the mountain in Technicolor. "Why they die themselves like that?" she asked, mouth open. Like usual, I made something up on the spot: "They don’t mean to, Grandma. They’re just following their family. That's all. They don’t know it's a cliff,"
"Maybe they should have a stop sign then."
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I never did heroin because I’m chicken about needles. When I declined his offer to shoot it, Trevor, tightening the cell phone charger around his arm with his teeth, nodded toward my feet. "Looks like you dropped your tampon." Then he winked, smiled—and faded back into the dream he made of himself.
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"Is it true though?" His swing kept creaking. "You think you'll be really gay, like, forever? I mean," the swing stopped, "I think me . . . I’ll be good in a few years, you know?"
I couldn't tell if by "really" he meant very gay or truly gay.
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Trevor Character Timeline in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
The timeline below shows where the character Trevor appears in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2
...bullet, not Little Dog, which Rose carried in her womb. Little Dog asks the boy, Trevor, to tell him a secret—any secret, as long as it is “normal.” Trevor agrees and...
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...nothing. For Little Dog, the word “sorry” has become “something else.” This is why, when Trevor first introduces himself in the tobacco field, Little Dog says, “Sorry.”
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The day after meeting Trevor for the first time, Little Dog runs into him in the barn. It is a...
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Little Dog and Trevor spend hours talking in the barn, until the late summer sun begins to set. Trevor...
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Sitting on top of a tool shed with Trevor, Little Dog feels the cool breeze and watches the late summer sun go down. They...
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“Cleopatra,” Trevor says after a moment of silence. Little Dog is confused. Cleopatra, Trevor says, watched the...
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After the day on the roof of the shed, Little Dog and Trevor drive around in Trevor’s truck. As he drives, Trevor cuts a cigarillo lengthwise with a...
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“Don’t be weird,” Trevor says to Little Dog. Trevor picks up a WWII army helmet and puts it on....
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Little Dog knows very little about football, but Trevor tries to explain the rules. As the Patriots score the winning touchdown and Trevor celebrates,...
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...Dog works on the tobacco farm for two more seasons, but he continues to see Trevor all year long. One October day—October 16, a Thursday, to be exact—Little Dog discovers for...
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Trevor lives with his father in a trailer behind the interstate. In his room, Trevor turns...
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It is impossible to tell the story of Trevor, Little Dog tells Rose, without talking about drugs. Little Dog can’t tell the story without...
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The first time Trevor and Little Dog have sex, they don’t really have sex at all. Little Dog tells...
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In his backyard, Trevor shoots at old paint cans with a .32 Winchester. “[T]o be an American boy, and...
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About a week after Little Dog and Trevor’s first sexual experience, they do it again. This time, Trevor grabs a fistful of Little...
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Trevor and Little Dog begin to refer to their modified sex as “fake fucking,” and one...
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...the other?” It is 7:00 in the evening on Thanksgiving Day, and Little Dog and Trevor are riding their bikes down Main Street. Trevor’s father is back at their trailer eating...
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Trevor’s living room is “miserable with laughter,” as his father sits drunk in the recliner in...
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Riding their bikes along the Connecticut River, Trevor and Little Dog can see the city on both sides. Little Dog looks to his...
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...infant was pulled from the trunk of a car during a blizzard. Little Dog and Trevor ride away from the river, towards Main Street, leaving the people on the other side...
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Little Dog reminds Trevor that he already has a father, but Trevor tells Little Dog to ignore his father...
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...structure of Little Dog’s letter changes, and his writing turns to poetry. He writes of Trevor, driving a rusty pickup truck without a license. Trevor, his blue jeans covered in blood,...
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Little Dog writes of Trevor loading a shotgun, of Trevor in the rain, and of Trevor begging him. “Please tell...
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...on their muscles, so they stay tender and better tasting. “We love eatin’ what’s soft,” Trevor’s father once said, staring Trevor “dead” in the eyes. “[E]very box will be opened in...
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Part 3
...down at his phone. There are numerous messages on the screen, each of them about Trevor. “It’s about Trevor pick up,” one message says. “The wakes on Sunday,” another reads. Little...
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...off the train in Hartford. It has been over five years since he first met Trevor on the tobacco farm. Little Dog didn’t bother to tell anyone he was coming to...
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“You’re gonna kill it in New York,” Trevor said to Little Dog. “Don’t be scared.” At that moment, Little Dog knew Trevor was...
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Little Dog gets off the train and immediately heads for Trevor’s house. Halfway there, Little Dog decides it probably isn’t a good idea to show up...
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...ninety on a bad batch of fentanyl.” Little Dog doesn’t even celebrate his birthday anymore. Trevor started taking OxyContin after he broke his ankle the year before Little Dog met him....
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...soon prescribed for all kinds of pain, from arthritis to headaches. Once, Little Dog and Trevor stopped under an overpass to get out of the rain on their way home from...
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...the buffaloes. You can stop.” Little Dog swallows his pills. He never did heroin with Trevor; he was always too scared to shoot up. “Looks like you dropped your tampon,” Trevor...
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...wakes to a strange sound. His eyes adjust in the darkness, and he can see Trevor seizing on the basement floor. At the hospital, Little Dog is told Trevor will live—this...
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...inside slaughter.” Cocaine and oxycodone makes things calm and busy simultaneously. Once, after shooting up, Trevor asked Little Dog if he was “really” gay. “You think you’ll be really gay, like,...
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...giving her a “mess.” He wonders if this is what art truly is. He searched Trevor’s name online recently, and it told him that Trevor was alive and living 3.6 miles...
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Little Dog thinks of Trevor, who has been dead now for seven months. He thinks about their time in the...
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As Trevor enters Little Dog, pain explodes throughout Little Dog’s body. Trevor begins to move and the...
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Trevor stands above Little Dog. Trevor, Little Dog thinks, who was “raised in the fabric and...
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In the water, Trevor tells Little Dog not to worry about what happened, and Little Dog nods, humiliated and...
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...dreams. He opens his eyes and is in the tobacco barn. It is August, and Trevor sleeps next to him. Little Dog stands up in his boxer shorts and goes outside,...
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