A month ago, I saw Matthew Salesses in person at the Battle of the Craft Experts, an off-site AWP event featuring a seven-round contest among writers known for writing on craft—Salesses, Matt Bell, Robin Black, Gayle Brandeis, and Beth Nguyen—and emceed by Rebecca Makkai. I especially enjoyed when the questions unexpectedly veered into other forms of “craft,” e.g., witchcraft and Minecraft. For the first three rounds, Salesses held his own, though his Toni Morrison question was a bit of a softball: he had to complete the quote, “If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must________” from a multiple-choice list. Alas, I was dead on my feet and still had a long walk to the light rail stop to return to where I was staying in the ‘burbs, so I didn’t linger to hear the winner crowned.
I recently read Salesses’ third novel, The Sense of Wonder, precisely because I’d enjoyed his bestselling craft book, Craft in the Real World. The latter informs my approach to these reviews, leading me to try to be more aware of my biases and to recognize I’m not always a book’s ideal audience. Salesses would likely identify his ideal audience for The Sense of Wonder as Korean-American men who like basketball. While that may sound narrow and certainly excludes me, I suspect Salesses was guided by Toni Morrison’s advice: this is a book he wanted to read—so he wrote it.
Inspired by Jeremy Lin’s experiences and media treatment during the “Linsanity” phenomenon, Salesses centers the book on Won, a Korean-American basketball player dealing with racism in the NBA. The novel is grounded in Won’s perspective—its strongest voice—and also includes the perspective of Won’s girlfriend Carrie, a Korean-American TV producer trying to bring K-drama to an American audience. Later, Salesses incorporates a third thread focusing on the K-drama on which Carrie is working. While this layer felt clunky at times, it gave me more of a meta-awareness of Salesses’ craft choices in relation to K-drama conventions, like the primacy of fate and limited role of causality. I was curious about Salesses’ choice not to include the perspective of Robert Sung, the Korean-American adoptee sportswriter who alternately seems to be snuggling up to Won to use him or actively working to undercut him, but I suspect more focus on this narrative thread may have distracted from the K-drama echoes in Won and Carrie’s relationship. This subplot nevertheless complicates the book’s discussion of race and identity in unexpected and interesting ways. For what it’s worth, the chapters tend to be brief and run heavy on exposition and interiority versus scene; at times I felt I was reading summaries of chapters instead of chapters—or perhaps an emotional play-by-play.
Overall, it’s an energetic, ambitious book that probably won’t be like anything else you’ve recently encountered. But even if you don’t like NBA basketball or know anything about K-drama, you’ll likely find it a quick and thought-provoking read.
As always, thanks for reading! I realize this Substack just passed the three-month mark, and I hope these weekly reviews are helping you find books you enjoy that you might otherwise not have encountered. :) Happy reading!
This sounds interesting, and unlike what I usually read indeed. How cool that you saw Matthew Salesses in person at the Battle of the Craft Experts, and kudos for utilizing his book Craft in the Real World (adding to my to-reads as well) to inform these reviews and recognize biases! I have yet to *not* add a book you reviewed to my list! Congrats on passing the three-month mark!