I hadn’t heard of this book until I saw it on the BookTube Prize longlist. Since I’m hoping to make my way through a few of the books on the list before next round, I found the audiobook version of this and thought I’d give it a try. I was hooked.
I’m actually really grateful that I was given a reason to try this book. It’s an interesting format – it’s the story of an Asian man called Willis Wu who aspires to being a film star. But for him, there are very few parts available. The pinnacle of his aspirations is to work his way up from Generic Asian Man to Kung Fu Guy, like his father.
The book is structured to go back and forth between straight-forward storytelling and the set of a TV show. I had a bit of trouble with this structure – there were times when I got confused as to whether what was happening was reality, a fantasy or actually a TV show. It’s possible that there never was an actual TV show, that Willis was just seeing life that way in his mind. I’m not entirely sure, but oddly it really didn’t matter. I was drawn through it easily just the same.
The thing that works best about this book is how this narrative underlines racial issues without pointing a spotlight right at them. It shows how Asian people are often given no thought at all. They are marginalized to the point where they disappear completely; not even worth being pushed back against. It brings up how African-Americans are the subject of a particular type of aggressive racism, but Asian-Americans are seen as never actually being part of America at all. They are seen as perpetually being fresh off the boat, regardless of how many generations their family has lived there. To the point where even those with flawless American English are asked to fake an accent to fit the on-screen roles available to them.
It showed an area of racial identity that I don’t know enough about, and this book was a really important and educational one for me. But beyond that, it was just a really good book. It’s very funny in parts (a dark humour – my favourite kind), it’s sad, angering, frustrating and beautiful. I loved Willis’ character, and I cared deeply about his family and his story. I wanted him to find a place that he belonged. I wanted him to figure out how to connect with his family and move beyond the lines drawn for him by a society that didn’t care about him at all.
I didn’t go into this book with any expectations at all, but I was thoroughly impressed. I’m not sure if my confusion over which elements were reality was caused by listening to the audiobook – perhaps in print it is easier to follow. But it didn’t ruin the experience at all for me, and it might even have added to the interwoven elements in the story. I loved the audiobook and definitely recommend it highly in any format – one of my favourite books so far this year.
A deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, and escaping the roles we are forced to play—by the author of the infinitely inventive How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even 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 he is always 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. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except by one person, his mother. Who says to him: Be more.
Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes, Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterly novel yet. – Goodreads
Book Title: Interior Chinatown
Author: Charles Yu
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook/Paperback
Published By: Europa Editions
Released: November 25, 2020
Genre: Fiction, Humour, Race, Family, Identity
Pages: 288
Date Read: February 6, 2021
Rating: 9/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.04/5 (13,006 ratings)