Same Bed Different Dreams

Korean patriots abroad founded a government-in-exile in 1919, and it dissolved after Japan's defeat in World War II; this novel imagines that it never went away. Soon Sheen, whose story collection sold poorly and who now works for the tech giant GLOAT, meets a writer called Echo at a reunion of old friends and ends up holding an unfinished manuscript apparently written by that secret government: a revisionist history tying Syngman Rhee, the poet Yi Sang, assassins and revolutionaries to its plan for a unified Korea. A third strand follows Parker Jotter, a Black Korean War veteran whose science fiction novels doubt what is real. Woven with mysterious images, the book wanders from McKinley's assassination to a Korean War sitcom and Kim Jong Il's love of slasher films.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Speculative, Historical (assigned by AI)

First published

2023

Author's age

53 when first published

ISBN

9780812998979 (Random House, United States)

9780812988321 (Random House Trade Paperbacks, United States)

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