User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Wildly innovative; a perfect marriage of form and function.
Rating: really liked it
The first Chinese came in 1815. . . . Why doesn't this face register as American?
At its core,
Interior Chinatown is a meditation on the Chinese American immigration and assimilation experience. It tackles this through a heavily metaphoric screenplay about a Generic Asian Man forever stuck in the background of a police procedural called "Black and White." He is not privileged like White, nor is he oppressed like Black. Yet he is relegated to the sidelines, never able to be the star of his own narrative.
I can see why this book received so much recognition. For such a quick read, it packs a punch. It's sharp, unusual, and compelling. To be honest, it left me a bit conflicted afterwards. On the one hand, it unearthed some feelings I generally try to keep buried, being a first-generation Chinese American immigrant myself. But on the other hand, it only just skimmed the surface of its potential.
One of the most interesting things about this book is its unique screenplay format. It took me a few pages to get used to, but once I did, I couldn't look away. Quite often, it's not clear if we're reading the perspective of the main character Willis Wu or the character that Wu is playing in the police drama. And I think that ambiguity is on purpose, since they are both characters limited by their circumstances.
Aside from the format, this book reads like a memoir to me, with the author putting a lot of himself into it. And as in all cases with memoirs, I want to respect the author's deeply personal experiences. However, his experiences don't always align with mine. And since mine are such a deeply ingrained part of me, it was hard for me at times to separate out my own personal feelings and approach this as a neutral party.
Because this subject is quite familiar to me, I was hoping for a deep dive. But while the book touches upon many topics—assimilation and the barriers against it, longing for a place to belong, the gulf between generations of immigrants, and the long term financial and emotional impact of discrimination and racism—it doesn't go far enough in any of them for me. But I believe most readers who don't have personal experience in this will find it insightful and eye-opening.
One thing this book solidly achieves is that it opens the door to a conversation about the Chinese American immigrant experience, something that had previously been lacking. I am always so heartened to see diverse voices and representation in literature. I hope this is just the beginning of Chinese American authors getting the space and recognition they need to share their stories.
Let me close up by offering a personal thought. For me, one of the most difficult things about immigrating to another country, especially one that does not share a similar language or culture, is that you end up losing bits and pieces of yourself in the process. When you think about it, a person's language and culture is intrinsic to the foundation of who they are. So in order to fully assimilate, you must renounce crucial parts of yourself and take on a new persona. It is an extremely difficult journey, but to do so and have your new country not accept you, that is heartbreaking indeed. Because then you are unmoored. You cannot go back to the person you were before, for that country and culture has left you behind. Nor can you go forward to your new country. You have become a citizen without a state, a person without a home. Your only recourse is to forge a new culture that is a bridge between the old and the new. But not many others can truly understand and share that with you, so you are forever trying to find that connection with the few who do. That is one of the defining characteristics of the immigrant experience for me.
Rating: really liked it
This book is brilliant. It shows what you can do when you write with perception, humor and creativity about something you have experienced and understand intimately. No cultural appropriation here. He’s also one of the writers on the HBO series West World, so he understands TV too. The book tells the story of Willis Wu and his Chinese American family. Their story is interwoven inventively with the description of the generic roles that the Wu’s and other residents of their SRO play in a TV series. The roles range from Generic Asian Man #1, to Special Guest Star, to Recurring and (if you are really lucky) to Kung Fu Guy. Once you reach Kung Fu Guy, you hit a ceiling. It’s virtually impossible to make it to Generic Man. Willis meets Ethnically Ambiguous Girl who “gets to be objectified by men of all races”. The characters are on the sidelines in a society that lumps all Asians together, and never wanted them here. I loved this book. I’d read more by this author in a heartbeat.
Rating: really liked it
*inhales sharply* *screams*
This book makes me feel
seen. Interior Chinatown is a humorous look at Asians in film and the roles Asians in general are forced to play. There's Kung Fu Guy, Generic Asian Man, Tiger Mom, Asian Seductress... Asian people are shoved into boxes that don't always fit them, and they're forced to conform.
"You speak English well. Really well. It's almost like you don't have an accent."
Shit. Right. You forgot to do the accent.
It's the little things that stood out to me. The raising of voices when Asian people are around, as if they don't understand you. The surprise when they speak without an accent.
You know the thing that people do sometimes with Old Asian People. The sort of half-assed sign language except it's not sign language at all, just a made-up pantomime, as if Old Asians won't otherwise be able to understand anything you're saying.
Maybe it's the dream of the open highway. The romantic myth of the West. A reminder that these funny little Orientals have actually been Americans longer than you have.
It's the stereotype that honor is all that drives Asians. I see this over and over in movies and books, even from Asian authors. It's like we're robots that can only speak a single word - honor. And honestly, I'm tired of it. I need some duplicitous, clever Asian characters. I need a main Asian character. I need someone who's not a caricature.
You practice the words you will have to say.
"I did it for my family's honor, officer."
"I have disgraced my family and now I must pay the price."
"Without face, I have nothing."
"Honor means everything in my culture. You wouldn't understand."
However, I sometimes thought the humor was a bit too much. There were deeper moments hidden between the comical elements, and I wished these would have lasted longer. It felt imbalanced to me at times.
There we go. The two words: Asian Guy. Two words that define you, flatten you, trap you and keep you here. Your most salient feature, overshadowing any other feature about you, making irrelevant any other characteristic.
Towards the end of the book, there were a few very powerful monologues. I highlighted so much. They spoke to my soul.
"He's internalized a sense of inferiority. To White people, obviously. But also to Black people. Does he realize that? He thinks he can't participate in the race dialogue, because Asians haven't been persecuted as much as Black people."
"But the experience of Asians in American isn't just a scaled-back or dialed-down version of the Black experience. Instead of co-opting someone else's experience or consciousness, he must define his own."
The whole book was building to this final act, and it hit hard.
"This is it. The root of it all. The real history of Asian people in America. Two hundred years of being perpetual foreigners."
4 stars
Rating: really liked it
update: CONGRATS... nominated a National book award!!
Generic Asian man, Golden palace, ethnic recurring
Striving immigrant, kung Fu dad, The chase seven missing Asian, Chinatown
I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this book.
It’s oddly realistically relatable which at times felt ( to me), like a slap-in-the-face at my own stupidity!
It was funny - but.....I had to ask myself “why I thought it was funny”.
It was also dark. But why?
It’s also sad....
ha...
....that I ‘do’ understand. I knew why this book was sad!
But.... it’s also hopeful....
“In the world of Black and White, everyone starts out as Generic Asian Man. Everyone who looks like you, anyway. Unless you’re a woman, in which case you start out as Pretty Asian Woman”.
“You all work at Golden Palace, formally Jade Palace, formally Palace of Good Fortune. There’s an aquarium in the front and cloudy tanks of rock crabs and two-pound lobsters crawling over each other in the back. Laminated menus offer the lunch special, which comes with a bowl of fluffy white rice and choice of soup, egg drop or hot and sour”........
“You wear the uniform: white shirt, black pants. Black slipperlike shoes that have no traction whatsoever. Your haircut is not good, to say the least”.
Kung Fu Guy is special - only for the few.
“It takes years of dedication and sacrifice, and after all that only a few have a slim chance of making it. Despite the odds, you all grew up training for this and only this. All the scrawny yellow boys up and down the block dreaming the same dream”.
“Ever since you were a young boy, you’ve dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy”.
“You are still not Kung Fu Guy”.
“You are currently Generic Asian Man Number Three/Delivery Guy”.
Disposable chopsticks, free glossy calendars from East-West Bank, ( good for wrapping fish or fruit), packets of soy sauce and chili paste from the dollar Chinese down the street.
The writing is sharper than any knife I have in this house. The stylist format and metaphors are powerful.
This book does something to us.
It’s so eye-opening I wanted to kick myself.
The title of this book - with it’s first word being “Interior”..... shows up tenfolds more powerful .... as we experience reading the words inside.
“There’s just something about Asians that make reality a little too real,
overcomplicates the clarity, the duality, the clean elegance of BLACK and WHITE, the proven template
and so the decision is made and some overarching conspiracy to exclude Asians but because it’s just easier to keep it how we have it”.
Transformative, original, (with stereotype themes and Hollywood dreams)....
The jokes are funny, but it’s the heartfelt warmth and tenderness for family humanity.... that moved me most.
Charles Yu ..., opened up a can of worms, while letting the cat out of the bag at the same time.
“You’re here, supposedly, in a new land full of opportunity, but somehow have gotten trapped in a pretend version of the old country”!
Ridiculously outstanding originality....with plenty of enjoyable laughs balanced with insightful seriousness.
I actually see hope and possibilities for the future...that is, if we can first survive this pandemic.
Highly recommended!
Rating: really liked it
The question is: Who gets to be an American? What does an American look like? We’re trapped as guest stars in a small ghetto on a very special episode. Minor characters locked into a story that doesn’t quite know what to do with us. After two centuries here, why are we still not Americans? Why do we keep falling out of the story?
On one level,
Interior Chinatown is the story of Willis Wu, a background actor on the show
Black and White, a hilariously bad rip-off of
Law and Order:
SHE’S the most accomplished young detective in the history of the department. HE’S a third-generation cop who left Wall Street to honor his father's legacy. TOGETHER they head the Impossible Crimes Unit, tasked with cracking the most unsolvable cases. When all others have failed, the ICU is the last hope for justice. When all others have failed, you call: BLACK AND WHITE. This is their story.
For now, Willis is Generic Asian Man, on the show and in his actual life. But if he plays his cards right, and gets lucky, he might climb the ladder all the way to the top, to the best role he can envision for himself: Kung Fu Guy.
Willis’s story of that pursuit is very funny. He works and lives in something of a meta-world, where the actors can talk to each other as themselves during scenes, and where there are extensive rules about how long you have to sit out when your character dies before going back to work. On this level, the book reminded me of one of my favorite books, Redshirts.
But there’s a second, larger, more important story being told here—subtly at first and then not so subtly—that explains why this book won the 2020 National Book Award. That story is about why Willis can only aspire to be Kung Fu Guy. About the stereotyping in the depiction of Asian culture on television and in movies. About the history of discrimination—in law, and later in practice—that has made it more difficult for Asian-Americans to assimilate in America.
This larger story is profound, and its core question—“Why doesn’t this face register as American?”—reminded me of the question repeatedly posed by Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me: “How do I live free in this black body?” While this book is far different in tone, it is ultimately grappling with similar questions of race and identity in America. Similar, but importantly not the same, because part of the book’s whole point is that while America hasn’t fully come to terms with the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws, it at least generally understands the scope of the problem. But because the historical mistreatment of Asian-Americans was not-quite-as-horrific as its treatment of African-Americans, America—this land of
Black and White (get it?)—has no idea how to even conceptualize, let alone address, the legacy of its ‘second-class oppression’ of Asian-Americans.
Interior Chinatown is a great book. It’s told in a completely original fashion. It is consistently funny, even as the issues discussed get more serious. And it’s thought-provoking on a subject most readers have probably not often considered. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5. Highly recommended.
Rating: really liked it
Now Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction 2020You have to applaud Yu for crafting a unique narrative set-up: His novel merges the storyline of a TV crime procedural with the life of a young man who by his surroundings is only perceived as the "Generic Asian Man" - he is an actor trying to get a role beyond that of a clichéd Asian person, but he is also forced into the role of "Generic Asian Man" in real life. The whole effect is surreal and brilliantly conveying the strange loops in which a person who is reduced to a stereotype is trapped - certainly, the whole TV/actor part of the book can also be read as strictly metaphorical. Yu cleverly plays out his ideas by writing parts of the book in the form of a movie script, and the whole novel is typed in Courier (the font used in scripts).
The protagonist, Willis Wu, is perpetually living in an "Interior Chinatown", a prison of perceptions in which he is trapped - and he is not even Chinese, he is, like the author, of Taiwanese descent (the point of course being that all of Asia is frequently seen as monolithic). While Wu works hard and has the ambition to make something of himself, his range of paragons is limited by what Western society allows him to be, and breaking free of his role of "Generic Asian Man" to become "Kung Fu Guy" only means to conform to another stereotype - what is he to do to break the mold in an averse environment? How can he find himself, find happiness?
Apart from giving us Wu's perspective in interior monologue, Yu reflects contemporary American society and its cultural projections by inventig storylines for the police procedural "Black and White", featuring a clichéd woman and a clichéd black man who play the detectives - you get the idea: One is black and one is white, but the series also paints reality in black and white. Where is the Asian representation, what is Wu's role? And how do minorities, employed to project diversity, act towards each other? Yu's narration breaks down the barrier between reality and the fictional series within the novel, and everyone is forced to act constantly, cast in a movie they never volunteered to be in.
Now all of this is brilliantly thought out and highly inventive, but as the storyline is sparse and many parts are highly descriptive, clearly stating narrative puposes and sometimes even bordering on essay writing, the basic idea did not really carry over the whole distance (although the book only has 288 pages). While the repetitiveness is part of the whole point (see: strange loops), it certainly does not help the pacing of the text. But to be fair, this criticism also touches upon the field of personal taste, and I'm sure that many other readers won't mind the points I just addressed.
All in all, Charles Yu wrote a daring, innovative, intelligent book with an important message, and while I wasn't fully immersed in the text, this novel is certainly worth checking out.
Rating: really liked it
Setting: Interior Chinatown
Character #1: Generic Asian Man
Time: Present Day (sadly)
What a clever, clever book this is! Charles Yu’s award-winning 2020 novel is a lean, mean, satire machine, packing a punch (or karate chop, as he’d probably write with a wink) in a mere 288 pages. It’s written in the form of a TV screenplay, which creates a very meta rumination on life imitating art imitating life.
The protagonist, Willis Wu, is an extra for a crime procedural called “Black & White” (think “Law & Order”), living his life on and off the screen as Background Oriental Male. If he dares to dream, he hopes to one day work his way up to Delivery Guy, then maybe, just maybe, Kung Fu Guy. But only if he remembers to do the accent.
While the screenplay structure and in-your-face stereotypes may not work for some, the techniques are certainly thought-provoking. All the world’s a stage as they say, and we are merely players. Interior Chinatown puts the typecasting of those in the AAPI community in the spotlight and asks its audience to see Asian Americans as people rather than props. I hope many readers will decide to tune in to this message.
Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/
IG: @confettibookshelf
Rating: really liked it
Wow, I love this book so much. Most books are lucky to be either clever or deep, but Interior Chinatown is both, and makes it look easy. Charles Yu has so much to say about the formulas that make up pop-culture storytelling, and the ways those formulas intersect with stereotypes.
Willis Wu is a bit player on a procedural cop show called Black and White (about a black cop and a white cop), and Willis aspires to rise to better roles, like Ethnic Recurring or even the most prized role, Kung-Fu Guy. And somehow, the roles Willis plays are also kind of his life, and he's stuck in a Chinatown SRO building with a bunch of other Asian bit players who are trying to fit in with what mainstream culture expects of them.
This book is so sarcastic and sardonic and disturbing, but also hilarious and moving. I read it really really fast, in one or two sittings, and this is the kind of book I know that I'll re-read and process and refer to over and over again. Interior Chinatown is essential reading for anyone who's obsessed with pop culture, identity, and all the ways that we're all playing roles, all the time.
Rating: really liked it
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu is a 2020 Pantheon Books publication.
I had forgotten the premise of this book as I didn’t get around to reading it when it was first published, but for some reason, I thought it was a memoir.
When I started reading it, though, I thought I had better go back and study the synopsis, because I was extremely confused. Once I realized the book was satirical and written as though it was a script or screenplay, it started to make a lot more sense.
While satire can be hard to pull off, Charles Yu nailed it perfectly. I have always believed that satire can be a great teaching tool. Approaching a topic in a comedic way, a ‘making fun of’, format can hold a mirror up to people, and can be blunt, cutting right to the heart of the matter, pulling no punches, but it is presented in a way that is easier to digest, and has a greater impact.
I think this book will make readers think and gives them insights they never considered until they took a virtual walk in someone else’s shoes for a while.
This book is a searing, scathing portrait of how Asians are depicted on the big and small screens in Hollywood. The Law & Order parody was written with an insider's flair. It was very funny- but also true and thought-provoking.
Yet, this book is so much more than the satirical humor. It’s history, it’s a very real struggle, an internal identity debate-which ultimately leads to a monumental realization and a triumph.
The format is creative- keeping everything with the context of a screenplay- and I do mean everything- on script and off. Willis/ Generic Asian Guy takes a poignant journey together. The last portion of the book- 'The Missing Asian Guy'- was beyond clever and SO good!
I thought this was a brilliant story. It was smart, funny, touching, and has an imaginative presentation and execution… and just maybe my first impression going in- that this was a memoir- might not be too far off the mark, after all.
Overall, I was very impressed with this novel. My reviews, as I often explain, are just ‘thinking out loud’ ramblings. They are merely my impressions and thoughts- my own personal experience with a book- so I rarely blatantly advise people to avoid or read/buy a book- but today I’m going to press the ‘highly recommended’ button!! A must read!!
5 stars
Rating: really liked it
2.5, rounded down.
I really hesitate to say anything at all about this, since I am sure there will be people screaming that my disenchantment is strictly due to 'White male privilege', but honestly, this novel will only be revelatory to someone who DIDN'T already realize that there is huge prejudice against Asians in not only Hollywood, but in general in the USA. It is really just one long, apparently autobiographical (and somewhat whiny), screed about lack of opportunities and stereotypical film roles forced on Asian American actors, and as someone who worked in Hollywood for many years (working to create and ensure roles and jobs for People with Disabilities in film, theatre and TV, who - trust me - have it WAYYYYY worse than Asians) ... none of this came as a surprise.
Even the 'innovative' format of presenting most of it in the guise of a screenplay did not really impress me, since half of what I read are play/film scripts, so it just seemed pro forma to me. It's not horrible, and was intermittently entertaining and humourous, but the writing itself never elevates from the pedestrian. I read it in less than a day, and it moved quickly, since the format means it is really only about the length of a 100-125 page novel presented in more traditional terms.
Compounding the problem is that protagonist Willis Wu remains a bit of a cipher - and what we DO know about him is made up of fairly stereotypical 'Asian attributes': he is ambitious, studious, respectful to his elders and family, preoccupied with his martial arts (though we are only TOLD that, and never shown it). Worse, his relationship with his to-be wife Kitty (aka Sexy Young Asian Female #1) is based almost solely on his appreciation of her looks. In effect, Wu actually IS Generic Asian Guy #3!
From all the hoopla, hype and acclaim, I was just expecting much, MUCH more. I think all the awards attention is really just a valiant attempt to diversify the nominees, rather than any inherent value. PS IMHO, Shuggie got ROBBED of the NBA in favor of this mediocrity - glad the Bookers got it right ... for ONCE!
Rating: really liked it
There are aliens walking among us.
There are people who look like us, sound like us, walk like us, presumably appreciate the cinematic stylings of America's Sweetheart Jennifer Garner like us...
But their brains are nothing like ours.
Their brains work entirely differently, synthesizing the same data and experiences us lowly humans have into completely creative and unique worldviews that lead to masterpiece-level works of art. Like, I am hearing that that perpetually present 24/7 crowd in front of the Mona Lisa has dispersed.
Because these aliens, in this totally valid and not at all insane-sounding hypothesis, create books like this one.
This is one of a kind crazy brilliant and you should just read it so I can shut up.
Bottom line: Read this book. In exchange I promise I won't write reviews when I'm fresh out of therapy anymore.
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pre-reviewgoodgoodgoodgoodgood.
review to come / 4 stars but like 4.25?
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tbr revieweveryone from my favorite bookstore to people in my comments to real-life acquaintances has recommended this one.
so if i don't like it i might combust.
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taking lily's idea and reading only books by asian authors this month!
book 1: the incendiaries
book 2: last night at the telegraph club
book 3: dear girls
book 4: sigh, gone
book 5: frankly in love
book 6: emergency contact
book 7: your house will pay
book 8: convenience store woman
book 9: on earth we're briefly gorgeous
book 10: we are not free
book 11: searching for sylvie lee
book 12: the displaced
book 13: schoolgirl
book 14: sweet bean paste
book 15: little fires everywhere
book 16: trust exercise
book 17: front desk
book 18: the bride test
book 19: interior chinatown
Rating: really liked it
This work is marketed as a novel, laid out as a screenplay, and requires the concentration of poetry.
On its surface the work (I hesitate to call it a novel) seems to be a critique of typecasting in the entertainment industry, but in reality that’s just the envelope for a far deeper exploration of identity, because the work demonstrates through this unique format the way its characters, and through extension every one of us, is a prisoner of identities imposed on us by others. When the protagonist-narrator looks at his father and sees for the first time how age and hard luck have diminished him, the author spoke to every grown child confronting that moment when the parent becomes the one in need of being lovingly cared for.
There are many such moments of intense illumination where two human beings see one another clearly in this story. I think it’s a resounding success. My 3 stars in this case has to do with how much work the author demanded of me to reach these meanings. I didn’t always have the stamina. I need more handholding maybe to fully engage with a work of fiction. My rating is likely to go up as I reflect on Yu’s achievement here, or it may work better for me as an audiobook. The blankness of some of the pages and the courier type began to wear on me eventually.
Rating: really liked it
This was definitely a “different” reading experience for me, one that was filled with playful jabs at Hollywood and the stereotypes that are so prevalently applied to Asians in modern society. Written in the form of a TV show script (complete with Courier font and everything!), the story revolves around a protagonist named Willis Wu – who, after playing various minor and often non-speaking roles such as Silent Henchman and Dead Asian Guy, has finally worked his way up to the role of Generic Asian Man in a TV show starring Black and White (a black male cop and white female cop, respectively). Though Willis eventually makes his way up to Very Special Guest Star -- the pinnacle of success for most Asians in the Chinatown SRO where he lives – Willis aims to follow in the footsteps of Older Brother before him and attain the highest level role that all Asian males aspire to: the role of Kung Fu Guy. As he continually climbs the ladder in the hopes of eventually finding his place in the spotlight, Willis makes many surprising (and not so surprising) discoveries along the way, both about his family as well as the Chinatown he grew up in. Throughout this journey, as Willis hops from one role to another, he begins to realize that the roles he is resigned to playing are not necessary aligned with the roles he “wants” to play. The question then becomes whether Willis will be able to break out of the Generic Asian Man role he seems “destined” to play and instead follow his own path, even if it completely upends the reality he has believed his entire life.
It’s rare for me to come across a book quite like this one – a book that is funny, smart, innovative, daring, playful, yet at the same time, also deep and thought-provoking. I love how the author Charles Yu was able to take his personal experiences as an Asian male in American society and transform it into a social commentary of sorts, satirically poking fun at various cultural stereotypes, but in a way that is good-natured and respectful. A book like this one only works if it is written by someone who knows the subject matter intimately, and even then, it can be risky due to how differently each person experiences the world around them. For me, growing up as an Asian-American in a neighborhood where there weren’t many people who looked like me, I could wholeheartedly relate to a lot of what the story’s main characters – especially Willis – went through. Charles Yu was also spot-on where most of the cultural stereotypes were concerned – I found myself nodding my head in agreement throughout much of the story (and also laughing hysterically in the process).
This is one of those books that is very difficult to review because each person’s experience reading and reacting to it will be different depending on the place in society you’re from. I personally found this one clever, brilliant, and absolutely resonant on so many levels, but of course others who read this may not feel the same way. I would still recommend this book though…and who knows, I might even check out this author’s backlist at some point!
Received ARC from Pantheon Books (Random House) via Edelweiss.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars, rounded up.
Charles Yu's National Book Award-winning
Interior Chinatown is funny, sharply satirical, thought-provoking, and uniquely told.
Willis Wu doesn’t feel like his life makes much of an impact: he tends to think of himself as “Generic Asian Man.” As an actor, he has played roles as diverse as Disgraced Son, Delivery Guy, Silent Henchman, and Guy Who Runs In and Gets Kicked in the Face. But he dreams of reaching what he sees the pinnacle of success for Asian actors—becoming Kung Fu Guy.
He and his parents live a fairly unremarkable existence in small one-room apartments in Chinatown. Their building is above the Golden Palace restaurant, the hub of the community, where a police procedural called
Black and White is in constant production. Willis and his parents and most of the community tend to drift in and out of the series, playing interchangeable parts and hoping their big break might someday come.
As Willis’ star appears to be rising, his consciousness about his role in the world grows. His family history is revealed and illustrates the challenges that Asians have faced since immigrating to America and other places in the world. Suddenly he begins to wonder if what he has dreamed of for so long—becoming Kung Fu Guy—is what he really wants. Is there more?
This is a fascinating, slightly trippy book at times. It’s really funny, as it skewers pop culture and the entertainment world’s treatment of Asians, but it’s also tremendously insightful and sensitive.
At times the book is written as a screenplay, at other times it's more narrative in structure. I’ll admit that there were parts I wasn’t sure were actually happening or if they were in Willis’ mind. But I couldn’t put
Interior Chinatown down, and I can totally understand why it won the National Book Award.
Truly a book I’ll remember.
Check out my list of the best books I read in 2020 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2020.html.
Check out my list of the best books of the last decade at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-favorite-books-of-decade.html.
See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.
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