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Same Bed Different Dreams

A Novel

by Ed Park
ebook
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 11 weeks
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 11 weeks
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present—loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and the perils of social media
“Your view of twentieth-century history will be enlarged and altered. . . . A Gravity’s Rainbow for another war, an unfinished war.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude

WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS CHOICE
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Public Library, Polygon, Kirkus Reviews 

In 1919, far-flung patriots establish the Korean Provisional Government to protest the Japanese occupation of their country. This government-in-exile proves mostly symbolic, though, and after Japan’s defeat in World War II, the KPG dissolves and civil war erupts, resulting in the tragic North-South split that remains today.
But what if the KPG still existed—now working toward a unified Korea, secretly pulling levers to further its aims? Same Bed Different Dreams weaves together three distinct narrative voices with an archive of mysterious images, and twists reality like a kaleidoscope. Korean history, American pop culture, and our tech-fraught lives come together in this extraordinary and unforgettable novel.
Soon Sheen, a former writer now employed by the tech behemoth GLOAT, comes into possession of an unfinished book seemingly authored by the KPG. The manuscript is a riveting revisionist history, connecting famous names and obscure bit players to the KPG’s grand project—everyone from Syngman Rhee and architect-poet Yi Sang to Jack London and Marilyn Monroe. M*A*S*H is in here, too, as are the Moonies and a history of violence extending from the assassination of President McKinley to the Reagan-era downing of a passenger plane that puts the world on the brink of war.
From the acclaimed author of Personal Days, Same Bed Different Dreams is a raucously funny feat of imagination and a thrilling meld of history and fiction that pulls readers into another dimension—one in which utopia is possible.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

    • Kirkus

      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.

    • Booklist

      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.

    • Library Journal

      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

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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