From the author of PEN/Faulkner finalist Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear and Craft in the Real World comes a " a smart, very meta take "  (Kirkus Reviews) on the ways Asian Americans navigate the thorny worlds of sports and entertainment when everything is stacked against them. An Asian American basketball star walks into a gym. No one recognizes him, but everyone stares anyway. It is the start of a joke but what is the punchline? When Won Lee, the first Asian American in the NBA, stuns the world in a seven-game winning streak, the global media audience dubs it “The Wonder”—much to Won’s chagrin. Meanwhile, Won struggles to get attention from his coach, his peers, his fans, and most importantly, his hero, Powerball!, who also happens to be Won’s teammate and the captain. Covering it all is sportswriter Robert Sung, who writes about Won's stardom while grappling with his own missed hoops opportunities as well as his place as an Asian American in media. And to witness it all is Carrie Kang, a big studio producer, who juggles a newfound relationship with Won while attempting to bring K-drama to an industry not known to embrace anything new or different. The Sense of Wonder follows Won and Carrie as they chronicle the human and professional tensions exacerbated by injustices and fight to be seen and heard on some of the world’s largest stages. An incredibly funny and heart-rending dive into race and our “collective imagination that lays bare our limitations before blasting joyfully past them” (Catherine Chung). This is the work of a gifted storyteller at the top of his game. USA Today 's 20 Most Anticipated Books of Winter Salon 's   22 Books We're Looking Forward to in 2023 Philadelphia Inquirer 's Best New Books to Kick Off 2023 Los Angeles Times 's Best Books of January Esquire 's January 2023 Book Club Pick Vulture's 30 Books We Can't Wait to Read This Winter Chicago Review of Books 's 12 Must-Read Books of January 2023 The Orange County Register 's   Most Anticipated of 2023 Powell's Picks of the Month Book Culture's Most Anticipated Books of January Apple Books's Staff Picks of January Vanity Fair 's 8 Books We Can't Stop Talking About This Month Literary Hub 's Best Book Covers of January “ The Sense of Wonder …jumps between tragedy and comedy, between pop culture and anti-Asian prejudice, and in the process creates its own remarkable winning streak.”― Ron Charles “A decade after real-world Linsanity, Salesses' novel about a pioneering Korean-American NBA player named Won Lee reexamines the model minority myth—as well as questions about masculinity, ambition, and loyalty—from the inside perspective. As Lee struggles to reconcile his role as both token and team player, his producer girlfriend grapples with the K-drama industry's own strictures on Asian storytelling. The result is a smart, assertive novel that isn't afraid to point out, even in this supposedly golden age of Asian-American narrativization, what still lies out of bounds.”― Vanity Fair “This playfully self-referential novel examines Asian American identity through the twin lenses of basketball and Korean TV dramas. . . Salesses’s novel, mimicking the melodrama of K-dramas, abounds in reversals—betrayals, infidelities, a cancer diagnosis. Such tropes, and the complex lives they reveal, are used to undermine the 'model minority myth' these characters hope to transcend.”― The New Yorker “The book focuses on the fractious relationship between two New York Knicks teammates and the larger issues of race, class and fidelity that they—and the friends and lovers in their orbit—must reckon with...Much of this novel is about perception—including, but not limited to, the racist microaggressions Won experiences from fans and team staff members alike. The novel’s second narrator, Carrie Kang, brings those questions of perception into sharp focus. The dual narration allows Salesses to subtly illustrate the ways his characters’ lives do and do not overlap. It reflects their differences—and what each of them has going on outside of their respective careers. And while there’s plenty of rumination on basketball in an age of celebrity, it’s far from the only concern in this ambitious, expansive work.”― The New York Times Book Review "Throughout The Sense of Wonder , Salesses refuses to shy away from frank discussions of race or racism, even as he centers the hopes and fears, frustrations and professional triumphs, of his protagonists. Salesses also declines to bench a complex formal device that would, in the hands of a lesser writer, dissolve under pressure as the clock runs out. Above all, the novel chooses itself. Like 'the Wonder' or 'Linsanity,' you may just have to see it to believe."― Kristen Evans, The Boston Globe "What Salesses does here is a remarkable feat of artistic prowess that somehow blends the themes of K-drama with the spectacle of sports drama in a way that resets our frame of reference for the Korean America