Wonder and Shame

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 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 adoptive 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?

Gregory Orfalea was born and raised in Los Angeles. He is the author or editor of eleven books, including a seminal biography of Junípero Serra, the Franciscan founder of California, Journey to the Sun (Scribner). Angeleno Days, his collection of memoirs, won the Arab American Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN USA Prize for Creative Nonfiction. His short fiction has been collected in The Man Who Guarded the Bomb. His essays have appeared in, among others, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Commonweal, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. He has taught literature and writing at the Claremont Colleges, Georgetown University, and Westmont College. Based in Santa Barbara, Orfalea annually participates in the deep-sea swims of the Reef and Run event.