Gregory Orfalea — Wonder and Shame: A Novel — at Conn Ave

About this Event

Could you throw yourself away? Frank Matter asks himself this question 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 her 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 America…

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