I had almost no expectations when I bought Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown and then slid it from the shelf then opened it to read it in the few days I had left for this book-club-read. I’m happy with the cover, but it would be impossible to set a reader up for exactly what they’re going to read because Interior Chinatown is fresh. Unique. A happy amalgam. Of course, with any boundary-stretching literature, it’s going to take a little time to figure out the rules and the wherefores. But if you just relax, that takes little time here, and you’ll be enjoying the Vonnegutesque mash-up of literary forms to tell a highly satirical bildungsroman of one Generic Asian Man.

Willis Wu has been working his way up the ladder of the cast of Black and White, a procedural police drama shot at Golden Palace restaurant. He has been Generic Asian Man Three, Generic Asian Man Two, Generic Asian Man One. But there is still a gulf between him and the success of his father and Older Brother, as Kung Fu Guy. To be Kung Fu Guy is all he’s ever wanted. But when he finally gets his chance to grab it unconventionally, will it be what it seemed? And will it be worth it?

I wonder if I had heard so little about this National Book Award Winner and international bestseller because its height of fame was when we were all locked away in our Pandemic bubbles. (It was published right before lockdown.) I resent this title not floating more often to the top of book discussions, because it is a wonderful book. I was so very pleasantly surprised by the innovation, the neatness, the nuanced emotional depth, the fun ride (and some lols) as well as the real history and immersive settings and engaging characters. I have said before I am so over New York City and LA stories, but I’m not sure this LA story isn’t just part of the allegory for the greater Chinese-American experience. There are layers of extended metaphor swirled up with imagination (Willis’s), like great therapy peeling back layers of the onion. What is the actual story here? We’re not 100% sure. But we know what it means, and we had a heck of a (great) time reading it.

Honestly, I don’t have that much more to say. Interior Chinatown is a book I’ve certainly never read before. It looks like a screenplay on the page, but it is using the form to be a novel. Every sentence, including the stage directions, the sub-headings, are there so on purpose. There are times when the text looks more like a novel, but that’s okay because we are meant to know that this is not actually a screenplay. And I loved the slowly unfurling hints about the reality behind things. He’s the sensei. No, he’s his dad who works as a sensei. No, he’s his dad who works as an actor playing a sensei. No… whatever. He’s different things in different layers/versions of the story. We understand and we’re having fun. At 266 pages with tons of white space on the pages, I flew through this one, marveling all the way.

Actually, one more thing. Rarely do I read a book and think, “No. I could never do anything like that.” I don’t think I could ever do what Yu has done here. He yanked us bodily up into a satire about being Asian in America while also playing cover-to-cover with form (seamlessly, cleanly) yet was clear about everything from his point to his blocking, whirled us around in three different realities that all played off one another, then set us back down enlightened (by both information and character). And I laughed and had fun.

Ten out of ten.

Charles Yu had one novel before this one, and I already have it on order. (How could I not buy a time travel book by someone compared with Vonnegut for my Vonnegut-, time-travel-loving husband?) That one is How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. He also has two short story collections, Sorry Please Thankyou and Third Class Superhero. I’m not sure there’s another novel coming; he works in the film industry, as well (and he’s a lawyer).

He attended Berkeley around the same time as Hua Hsu, which I remember because I visited there (the town, not the school) twice around the time they were there. (I have family there.) We’re not far off in years, him and I. He started off in poetry, like that other contemporary California author, Tommy Orange (and non-Californian contemporary novelist, Kaveh Akbar). (Are they all buddies? Rivals?)

He’s been published and honored in some pretty swanky places. He helped establish a Taiwanese writing prize (it looks like in memory of his parents, perhaps?).

“Because they’d also, in the way old people often do, slipped gently into poverty. Also without anyone noticing” (p21).

“But the widest gulf in the world is the distance between getting by and not quite getting by” (p21).

“The Emperor’s job was to present these plastic trays of steaming delicacies to a family of blond people somewhere in the middle of America, and then bow to them, while off-screen, in the shadows, a gong sounded (and further off-screen, in the mists of history, you could hear the collective weeping of a civilization going back five thousand years)” (p49).

“Frustration boils into indignation which condenses into something like, how funny is this shit? Because at some point, this shit is kinda funny” (p57).

“Working your way up the system doesn’t mean you beat the system. It strengthens it. It’s what the system depends on” (p95).

“I’ve got the consciousness of a contemporary American. And the face of a Chinese farmer of five thousand years ago. Asian Man. It’s a fact. Look it up. No one likes us” (p166).

“She says that telling a love story is something one person does. Being in love takes both of them. Putting her on a pedestal is just a different way of being alone” (p170).

Taika Waititi produced a ten-episode miniseries on Hulu that Yu made of Interior Chinatown. I am watching it right now and it is good, funny sometimes, but as usual I hate to watch things that don’t translate from the book, die. I loved the book. Let’s see if I can love the show for itself.

Still watching. It’s kinda long for only one season. And what I said above is true: it has to be enjoyed for itself, as it is tremendously different from the book. The author did adapt it, but only the ideas really stay the same (and some of the ways they are “seen”). Fortunately for the show, though, it stands alone as a strong piece of entertaining art. I’ll let you know more when I finish.