Wonder and Shame
Wonder and Shame
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Could you throw yourself away? Frank Matter asks himself, as he boards a one-way flight to Syria. He might as well ask: Can you find your life by losing it?
In spring 2016, after a run of personal sorrows, Frank, a lapsed Catholic clinging to one last scrap of faith, undertakes a dangerous journey to his family’s village of origin outside Damascus on a two-pronged rescue mission. He hopes to scoop up his deaf cousin Dayzi, whom he has loved since they were young, and escape with the beautiful seamstress to America, but their progress is halted by the terror and upheaval of the Syrian Civil War.
In the refugee camp of half a million people where they find themselves, Frank takes on another quixotic mission: to teach a deeply traumatized collection of orphans the game of American baseball. Everything and everyone resists it. Frank’s obsession will not only test his resolve and bedrock sense of reality. It will risk his life and the lives of everyone he is trying to help. It will transform them. He and his adopted family will wonder: How do you hold on to fair play, honesty, and respect for common ground in an increasingly cynical, callous, and power-driven world? Can healing happen—for an individual, a community, a country—in the face of abysmal violence, and if so, how?
Pope Francis said, “Go to the peripheries.” The gift of this book does just that. It stands against the troubling drift toward a “post-truth” society, where few know what is real anymore. Confronting the death of truth, this original, heartrending, finally triumphant story rings true.
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What People are Saying
“I have long admired Gregory Orfalea’s work—and with Wonder + Shame we are into welcome new territory. The novel is a winning mix of disparate elements—an original premise, a deft understanding of history, a refreshing take on the redemptive qualities of baseball, and the ever-evolving nature of cultural and religious inheritance. As ever, Orfalea writes with warmth and wit, and he invites readers to a truly original narrative universe where we accompany protagonist Frank Matter on a pilgrimage that moves through personal pain, family obligation, culture clash, and the intimate reckonings that shape identity and invite growth. Wonder + Shame is a deeply theological novel and experience—not only because of its pilgrim heart, but because Orfalea demonstrates well that, to find the greatest of treasures, one must travel through the caverns of sorrow and brokenness.”
—Michael Murphy, director of The Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage
“One man’s odyssey of hope and the remnants of faith becomes a tale of love and war and, most affectingly, baseball. Heartfelt, at times harrowing, Wonder + Shame is a wholly original account of Syria’s tragic history, as well as a meditation on what we owe one another.”
—Alice McDermott, National Book Award–winning author of Charming Billy, Absolution, and The Ninth Hour