Same Bed Different Dreams

A Novel

By: Ed Park

Narrated by: Daniel K. Isaac, Dominic Hoffman, Shannon Tyo

Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

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

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, and as reality twists 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 listeners into another dimension—one in which utopia is possible.

©2023 Ed Park (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Genius . . . Same Bed Different Dreams is an extraordinary—and hilarious—genre-busting nesting doll of comedy, science fiction, and thriller and, at its core, an epic compendium of Korean history that’s also the dark history of American foreign entanglements. It’s like no other novel I’ve read before—a cabinet of wonders that demands to be read and reread.”—Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings

“I can’t stop reading, thinking, and dreaming about this feverish, mind-altering marvel of a book.”—Hua Hsu, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Stay True

“Your view of twentieth-century history will be enlarged and altered by Ed Park’s mysterious, panoramic novel. It seems to draw on Bolaño, Pynchon, and DeWitt for its radical structure, yet remains grounded in a droll, sweet voice we’ve wished to hear again since Personal Days. This is a Gravity’s Rainbow for another war, an unfinished war. Having been enlisted in the Korean Provisional Government, I now await my instructions.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude

Complex and dazzling

Excellent performance (by three actors) of a multilayered epic — fun to listen to while reading the book.

Awful

Not sure why this is so highly rated ditched a quarter of the way through. Rambling and uninteresting.

Wish I liked this

I like the idea of this book, but the male reader has a voice that is hard for me to listen to as it is so bass and flat. I had my bass settings turned all the way down and my treble turned all the way up. It’s still hard to
Understand him and follow what he is saying. It does go back and forth to other readers. But then even though I can hear them better, I realize
This story is so hard to follow as well, the way it is written and the way it goes all over the place. Even when it is followable, I get bored quick. I have forced myself to keep listening all the way to where I had 14 hours left. But I just couldn’t any more. I’m glad it was free I think. But still I regret waisted time on this one.