Interior Chinatown

The single most original novel I've read in a long, long time. And yet at no point does the unique structure and style feel like a gimmick--quite the opposite, they open up seemingly familiar characters and themes in profoundly new ways.

Interior Chinatown is one of my all-time favorite novels. It has a personal meaning for me—through marriage I have ties to Los Angeles’s Chinatown, and Yu captures that community’s past and present so compellingly. 

The book’s main character, Willis Wu, pursues his dream of becoming a Hollywood leading man, navigating the complexities of Chinese American life and the pressures of American racism. Through Willis’s struggles, Yu provides a sharp expose of Hollywood and its stereotypes. By using the format of a script and, at points fusing reality with fantasy, Yu’s narrative becomes intensively gripping and visual.

This book drops you… show more.

Yu’s Interior Chinatown won the National Book Award because it married form and function in the most spectacular way.

Written in part like a screenplay, the novel tells the story of Willis Wu, an actor trying to break out from the role of “Generic Asian Man.” Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve probably heard about the push for better Asian representation in Hollywood. That certainly plays a role in the book, but there is also interrogation and critique here.

A novel written in the form of a screenplay could have easily turned into… show more.