Same Bed Different Dreams

Starred review from September 4, 2023
Park returns 15 years after Personal Days with an ingenious postmodern epic of colonial and postcolonial Korea framed in a satire of America’s publishing and tech industries. Soon Sheen, a novelist turned tech employee, works at the Google-esque Gloat, where he unplugs from intrusive work notifications to read an English translation of an “unfinished masterpiece” by obscure Korean author Echo titled Same Bed, Different Dreams. Much of Park’s novel is comprised of Echo’s narrative, which purports to be a “true account of the Korean Provisional Government,” a nationalist group that formed in 1919 during the Japanese occupation and which Echo claims did not disband at the end of Japanese rule in 1945 but in fact continues to operate in secret. The KPG is a motley group; among the ideologically opposed “members” claimed by Echo are Parker Jotter, a Black Korean War veteran turned communist sympathizer and radical science fiction novelist; and Ronald Reagan, who decries the 1983 Soviet attack on a Korean passenger jet. Park exhibits a wizardly range of styles; he can be funny, such as when Soon’s dog digs up a missing chapter of Echo’s book just in time for Soon to read it; lyrical, as in a description of snow as Jotter prepares for a mission (“white pinpricks on my jacket like a universe being born”); or poignant, as with revelations about who was on the doomed flight. By the end, it miraculously hangs together, driven by Park’s deep passion for Korean history. This tribute to the fractured peninsula’s citizens, diaspora, and allies is one for the ages.

Starred review from September 1, 2023
A secret history of Korea from the 20th century to the present, suffused with postmodern weirdness. Park's beguiling, deliberately knotty second novel--following Personal Days (2008)--is built on three intersecting narratives. The first is told by Soon Sheen, author of an ill-selling short-story collection and now an employee of GLOAT, a Meta-like tech company. At a gathering of college friends and former publishing colleagues, he's introduced to Echo, author of what Soon is told is a brilliant novel titled Same Bed, Different Dreams. (Evoking David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, Soon is told by the book's English translator that "some Koreans had gone mad after just a taste" of it.) The second narrative is the text of that novel, presented as a history of a secret Korean Provisional Government whose members include South Korean leader Syngman Rhee and a host of assassins, revolutionaries, and politicians. The third narrative concerns Parker Jotter, a Black Korean War veteran who's written a series of science fiction novels that, � la Philip K. Dick, question the nature of everyday reality. Park pushes each of these stories to the edge of coherence, willfully digressing and filling the tales with commentaries on the Buffalo Sabres, Kim Jong Il's obsession with the Friday the 13th movies, U.S. president William McKinley's assassination, and more. Yet there's no question that Park is in control of the story, and he reconciles it all brilliantly. It's an encyclopedic yarn about Korea's tragic and difficult 20th century, but also a compassionate study of how much we inherit culturally from the past, and how we're connected to it more deeply than we're inclined to think. And for all its Pynchonian gamesmanship, it's simply fun, rife with detours on parenthood, literature, hockey, and spycraft. Even in moments when it's not entirely clear where the story's going, Park is a savvy and entertaining guide. A brash, rangy, sui generis feat of speculative fiction.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 15, 2023
Riotous erudition runs rampant through Park's new novel, arriving 15 years after his celebrated debut, Personal Days (2008). Grander lauds are certainly forthcoming for his stupendous tome, a synergistic reclamation of East-West history, acrobatic sf, and biting sociopolitical commentary presented as three distinct prongs that brilliantly meld by the book's end. Narrative 1: Soon Sheen, an "I don't write anymore" writer-now-tech-drudge, has dinner in Manhattan's Koreatown, where he meets enigmatic Korean author Echo (formerly Cho Eujin), touted as "the next Rumi." On the train home to the 'burbs, he discovers in his satchel the manuscript of Same Bed, Different Dreams: Being a True Account of the Korean Provisional Government. Narrative 2: Those five dreams hold countless secrets about Korea (whole, colonized, divided, future), including the involvement of such highly unexpected figures as Jesus Christ, Marilyn Monroe, and Ronald Reagan. Narrative 3: Black Korean War veteran, fighter pilot Parker Jotter, patiently pens five of an intended six books of his sf series, 2333, a space opera that's perhaps much closer to earthly revelations than it might seem at first read. For audiences wondering how much is "true," an open browser is recommended. But be warned. Park blurs fact and fiction so seamlessly that search results will undoubtedly surprise if not shock, albeit not without reverential delight.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from November 1, 2023

Park's (Personal Days) magnum opus of the Korean diaspora is told in a set of five dreams, multiple levels of which provide a kaleidoscope of perspectives that intersect along overlapping indices of history and significance. These overlaps define the most interesting characters as members of a mythic Korean Provisional Government in a humorous and yet intensely serious manner. The fictional format adroitly illustrates rampant racism and colonial degradation stemming from political maneuvering as far back as the forgotten naval victory of Admiral Yi Sun-sin in 1597, through the Russo-Japanese War and Japanese occupation to the Korean conflict and beyond. The sections are leavened with imaginative works of science fiction by an ex-Korean War POW and the narrator's experiences at a futuristic technology company. This illustrates a form of dreaming that elicits connections across space and time and brings readers into a focused experience of cyclical existence across a constantly repopulated world stage. VERDICT Cameo appearances by historical figures like Syngman Rhee, Sun Myung Moon, Ronald Reagan, and Phillip K. Dick underscore their connections to the literature, film, and politics that have created and divided the Koreas of today; this playfully serious must-read is highly recommended.--Henry Bankhead

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