Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear by Matt Salesses

 Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear by Matt Salesses

Invisibility is a social issue that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.  It affects many segments of the population, but some groups bear more of the burden of being unseen than others.  Disappear Doppelganger Disappear begins with an abbreviated list of disappearances…governmentally sanctioned limits on immigration, particularly affecting Asian immigration. Author Matthew Salesses addresses this burden through character Matt Kim, who has lost his parents, family, and quickly losing all sense of himself. As a Korean-American adopted child, Matt seeks connection.  He’s divorced and estranged from his daughter and seems to be willing to do anything to reestablish connections. Like the character in his own novel: “He was at an age of dwindling options: Each choice he made limited the choices he had left.”

Then there are the doppelgängers written as separate characters. There is another “Matt” who is everything the first Matt thinks he’d have liked to have been, but this Matt has been murdered.  The girlfriend, who changes her name, though the original Matt sees this change as the creation of another doppelganger.  The story reinforces the premise that in order to communicate, there must be a “share[d] belief in imaginary things: nations, limited liability corporations, money, gender, race.”  It isn’t clear what these characters believe in, but clearly, this author understands the nuances of humor.

This book is not for the person looking for an easy read.  It is hard to keep track of the many Matts, (including one named for the author.)  The magical elements, which let Matt travel through space and time (though only between two locations and times,) are interesting and unforgettable, but difficult as well, taking the form of cracks in walls, yellow yarn and bubbles.  It is in the existential questions where the universal appeal resides, and it goes beyond a plea for male Asian adoptees/immigrants to be seen.

“In this one and only world, messy and circumstantial and shared, nothing is completely free from its opposite. You are not only who you are, but who you are not.”

This is an important book for the times in which we live, and probably, for any time.  Crises change, but the need for human connection and living authentically never disappear, even when we want them to.

Recommended to anyone looking for deeper meaning in fiction. 

I read an advanced readers copy of Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear provided by NetGalley. The book will be released on August 11, 2020.