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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.
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This book was fun and engaging! I listened to it as an audiobook and there’s for sure pros and cons to it. Some of the names got confusing with “Generic Asian Man” and “Old Asian Man” - but part of me felt it added to the point of the story. But really unique way of writing and expressing a story I think about often in my day to day life. Entertaining and with a message!
Also, to be writing a book in a screenplay format and when so many immigrants use TV and movies to connect to American culture and even as a guide to assimilation… it’s kind of genius what this author did.
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