The Sense of Wonder, Matthew Salesses
The Sense of Wonder, Matthew Salesses
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The Sense of Wonder

Author: Matthew Salesses

Narrator: Jee Young Han, Tommy Kang

Unabridged: 6 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/17/2023

Synopsis

From the author of PEN/Faulkner finalist Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear and Craft in the Real World comes a searing masterwork on the ways Asian Americans navigate the thorny worlds of sports and entertainment when everything is stacked against them. An Asian American basketball star walks into a gym. No one recognizes him, but everyone stares anyway. It is the start of a joke but what is the punchline? When Won Lee, the first Asian American in the NBA, stuns the world in a seven-game winning streak, the global media audience dubs it “The Wonder”—much to Won’s chagrin. Meanwhile, Won struggles to get attention from his coach, his peers, his fans, and most importantly, his hero, Powerball!, who also happens to be Won’s teammate and the captain. Covering it all is sportswriter Robert Sung, who writes about Won's stardom while grappling with his own missed hoops opportunities as well as his place as an Asian American in media. And to witness it all is Carrie Kang, a big studio producer, who juggles a newfound relationship with Won while attempting to bring K-drama to an industry not known to embrace anything new or different.

The Sense of Wonder follows Won and Carrie as they chronicle the human and professional tensions exacerbated by injustices and fight to be seen and heard on some of the world’s largest stages. An incredibly funny and heart-rending dive into race and our “collective imagination that lays bare our limitations before blasting joyfully past them” (Catherine Chung). This is the work of a gifted storyteller at the top of his game.

About Matthew Salesses

Matthew Salesses was adopted from Korea when he was two. He has written about adoption, race, and grief for NPR, the New York Times, the Guardian, VICE, and other publications. He is the author of seven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the writing guide Craft in the Real World and the PEN/Faulkner shortlisted novel Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear. He lives in New York with his two kids and is an assistant professor of writing at Columbia University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Roxane on December 27, 2022

This novel is brilliantly structured with several interwoven stories— an Asian American basketball star, the reporter who wishes he could have been, a k drama producer with a dying sister. The characters here are very wry about their circumstances in an appealing way. I enjoyed the humor and the emo......more

Goodreads review by Ron on January 11, 2023

In early 2012, Jeremy Lin, the first Taiwanese American in the NBA, led the New York Knicks out of a miserable slump to win seven games in a row. The cover of Sports Illustrated trumpeted Lin’s “sudden and spectacular ascent,” and fans around the world went crazy with Linsanity! Beyond his opponents......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on September 14, 2022

People keep telling me this is my best book and I just might believe them......more

Goodreads review by Kasa on February 20, 2023

The Sense of Wonder is a fine example of a relatively short novel tackling some hard issues of today by employing a platform that purports to be about a more genre specific topic. In this case, a second generation Korean of unusual height who is drafted by the NY Knicks. There is much behind the sce......more

Goodreads review by Jocelyn on April 08, 2023

WOW!!! 11/10 would recommend this book to myself. thank u matthew salesses for this story!! if u are interested in asian american literature this is a pretty great novel — it covers serious ground but is full of humor, with a bold plot and subtle genre bending (which i love!). i also get the feeling......more

Quotes

"A brilliant and scathing chronicle of two Asian Americans as they try to find their place in contemporary sports and media...Salesses fills the page with all the bold, kinetic confidence of an athlete striding onto the court."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A remarkable novel of love, obstacles, and possibilities...The Sense of Wonder explores multiple Korean American experiences through vivid, unforgettable characters. [Readers] will love the depth of the characters' perspectives on being people of color in a white-dominated society."—Booklist

"[Salesses's] storytelling is crisp while avoiding easy frothiness. A smart, very meta take on love, sports, race, and media."—Kirkus Reviews

“What a pleasure to read work that spits off the page, fiction that vibrates and twitches with life. The Sense of Wonder is exactly that kind of book, one that refuses to let you forget about it, a novel that wants you to remember its story long after the initial read is done. This is a wildly physical book, the beating heart of it smashed up against the ribcage of the binding, thumping hard, demanding attention. I have never read anything like it. Matthew Salesses is a genius and The Sense of Wonder is a genuine marvel.”—Kristen Arnett, bestselling author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things

“Matthew Salesses's new novel is so freaking good I can't stand it. Blistering, confident, full of swagger and heart, it is also an exhilaratingly smart treatise on race and our collective imagination that lays bare our limitations before blasting joyfully past them. A must read!”—Catherine Chung, author of The Tenth Muse and Forgotten Country

"Sharp, funny, and searingly original, The Sense of Wonder is a tour de force from one of the most inventive writers working today."—Kirstin Chen, author of Counterfeit

"When Won is signed by the New York Knicks, it seems at first that his dreams are coming true, but instead he is drawn into a world rife with high-stakes rivalry, subterfuge, and corrosive racism. The Sense of Wonder is equal parts a love letter to the intricate art form of basketball; a blade-sharp page-turner that delves deep into the rotten heart of America; and an ode to kdrama and the liberating power of love. Matthew Salesses brilliantly upends expectations on every page and, by the end, a powerfully new kind of story surfaces. The Sense of Wonder  is revelatory and original and I absolutely loved this novel."—Laura van den Berg, author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears

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