Author: Charles Yu

Interior Chinatown merges the storyline of a TV crime procedural, Black and White, with the life Willis Wu. He and his parents live a fairly unremarkable existence in small one-room apartments in Chinatown. Their building is above the Golden Palace restaurant where the show is in constant production. Wu and his parents and most of their community drift in and out of the series, playing interchangeable parts and hoping their big break might someday come. And I think sometimes they work in the restaurant which seems to actually be a business, not just a set. Wu is often cast as as the "Generic Asian Man," and sees himself holding that role in real life too. It's a clever book, with parts written as a screenplay, parts as Wu's inner monologue, and using snippets of true historical documents. But maybe it's too clever. I appreciated the blurred lines between fiction and reality. I understand that America has been harming Asian...