One of the funniest books of the year. . . . A delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire. -- The Washington Post
From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.
Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he's merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy--the most respected …
2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
One of the funniest books of the year. . . . A delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire. -- The Washington Post
From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.
Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he's merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy--the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?
After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he's ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration -- Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu's most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.
Fresh and beautiful. . . . Interior Chinatown represents yet another stellar destination in the journey of a sui generis author of seemingly limitless skill and ambition." -- The New York Times Book Review
A lite read. Sometimes hard to follow, though such is also part of Yu's charm in blending together many concepts. His craft pulls at heartstrings, a bitter salt rubbed into the wound at others. Interior Chinatown touches on issues largely known in the Asian American activist community but still barely discussed out of it, ending with the momentum of historical fact. The unique concept of the book draws in an audience to this dialogue unlike a formal academic textbook or a garage printed zine.
