A fun and interesting look at identity and Hollywood's Asian tropes and stereotypes, told in the form of a screenplay. Format didn't totally work for me but it's great to see a different way of telling this kind of story.
Thank you to NetGalley for approving me for an ARC in exchange for review.

I loved the concept of this book and the strength of the writing. The book was stylistically interesting without being pretentious and high concept without it being forced. Form and function came together really well.
I was really moved by the plight of the characters and I really felt for them. The book was funny in its satirical, mocking send-up of Hollywood's stereotyping and pigeonholing of Asian actors and characters but also heartbreaking in how it details the immigrant dream and how hard it is to reach it.
A clever, interesting idea executed well.

Thank you Europa for the ARC.

In Charles Yu’s <em>Interior Chinatown</em>, which feels about as zeitgeisty a book as you could get this year without a pandemic raging through it, there is a discussion of the word ‘Chinaman’. Ming-Chen Wu, the protagonist Willis Wu’s father, arrived in Mississippi in the 60s, where ‘half of the class calls him Chinaman, but mostly they mean it affectionately’. Yu doesn’t dwell on this long.

Chinaman, the one that seems, in a way, the most harmless, being that in a sense it is literally just a descriptor. China. Man. And yet in that simplicity, in the breadth of its use, it encapsulates so much. This is what you are. Always will be, to me, to us. Not one of us. This other thing.

Soon after, Ming-Chen’s friend Allen Chen is beaten unconscious for being a ‘Jap’. Ming-Chen realises that he will now, always, be simply Asian Man.
The backstory of Willis’s parents is the anchor of the book, structurally (it’s exactly halfway through), thematically and tonally. It’s a serious and moving section that brings together many of the themes of the book, but that earnestness is atypical – for the most part, <em>Interior Chinatown </em>is absolutely hilarious. Genuinely laugh out loud. It is fantastically fresh, and I can’t think of a book I’ve read this year that so masterfully balanced the comic with the sincere. It is a deeply thoughtful book about race in modern America, about being Chinese American, ‘<em>part of the American show, black and white, no part for yellow</em>’, present in the US since 1815 but conflicted by centuries of actual legal oppression combined with the feeling that this oppression is ‘<em>second-class</em>’ as ‘<em>Asians haven’t been persecuted as much as Black people</em>’. It even has an epic Hollywood courtroom speech finale which could be repackaged as a polemical opinion column and which, incredibly, Yu manages to make feel entirely in keeping with the book. It’s brilliant and I loved it.

The trick is partly in the form – much of the book is written as a film script as Willis Wu processes his life as scripted fantasies. The book is short – read-in-one-sitting short – and this style doesn’t wear thin. Charles Yu is himself a scriptwriter as well as an author, and this allows him to explore the stereotyping of Asians both on screen (‘<em>why is the Asian guy always dead?</em>’) and the parallels in real life. It’s ingenious. Yu is exploring patterns, forms and shapes – of representation, or stereotypes, of expectations – and he does so breaking out between narratives and stylistic forms. To manage the tones so deftly, moving between thoughtful, moving, and just hilarious, is an impressive achievement.

Plotwise, there’s not much to it. Willis Wu is a regular guy working in a Chinese restaurant, living in a single room occupancy, who wants to be a success in life – or in the internal logic of <em>Interior Chinatown</em>, Willis Wu wants to be Kung Fu Guy, but is currently Background Oriental Male. His father, once Sifu, is now just Old Asian Man. Willis’s older brother, on the other hand, never had to be Generic Asian Man – he was a prodigy, he made it, as we see from the ‘Older Brother Awesomeness Montage’. Elsewhere we see Lowlife Oriental, Sultry Asian Woman, Mini Boss. Much of the ‘scripted’ section is written as is a crime drama featuring a ‘white lady cop’ and a ‘black dude cop’, allowing a humorous probing of racial and entertainment stereotypes. Willis marries and then divorces Karen, who is ethnically ambiguous (a ‘magical creature’…’able to pass in any situation as may be required’), and while he hardly sees his daughter he still aspires to be Kung Fu Dad. The title, <em>Interior Chinatown</em>, works as a description of Willis’s personal fantasy world, as a description of the self-reflexive and self-preservative character of the Chinatown he describes, and as a script marking (Interior: Chinatown)

The script form also gives rise to many of the funniest passages – character asides, scene markings, the layout of the print on the page. Production notes like ‘<em>Set Design: Curved eaves; massive roofs; pay attention to cornices! Oriental flourishes and touches; details are everything</em>’. The ‘Singing Children (O.S.)’ accompanying the poignant scene between Willis and his daughter, played like a Sesame Street-style children’s show (‘<em>This is the part where we learn songs and rhymes with positive messages about tolerance and inclusion!</em>’) Stripped of the ‘he said’ the comic dialogue is more immediate (‘<em>You speak English well.’ – ‘Thank you.’ – ‘Really well. It’s almost like you don’t have an accent.’ – Shit. Right. You forgot to do the accent
But Yu is also strong with more delicate language: Wu’s father now viewing him with a ‘<em>blank if slightly wary amiability, as one might endure an overbearing but helpful stranger</em>’; his mother who dresses in her costume to go to work at night in the Golden Palace, ‘<em>her emotional energy draining from the room, her protective field slowly dissipating</em>’; and getting to know his daughter ‘<em>like finding old letters, of things you knew thirty years ago and haven’t thought of since. How to feel, how to be yourself. Not how to perform or act. How to be'

And ultimately disappointment runs through Willis’s life – he thought he wanted to be a success, to be Kung Fu Guy, but he can’t remember why, and when it comes down to it, ‘Kung Fu Guy is just another form of Generic Asian Man’. This feels as damning and as succinct as assessment of the American dream as I can remember reading. After all, Bruce Lee, the ‘<em>one guy who made it</em>’, was an anomaly, ‘<em>a living breathing video game boss-level, a human cheat code, an idealised avatar of Asian-ness and awesomeness permanently set on Expert difficulty

<i>"You are trapped. Doing well is the trap. A different kind, but still a trap."</i>

Witty and funny. The basic premise of this book is that the world is a TV show, and everyone has a role to play. The lead actor of the novel dreams of landing the starring role of Kung Fu Guy. The novel comments on what it means to want to fit into the mainstream, and how roles are internalised.

<i>"Chinatown and indeed being Chinese is and always has been, from the very beginning, a construction, a performance of features, gestures, culture, and exoticism. An intention, a reinvention, a stylisation. Figuring out the show, finding our place in it, which was the background, as scenery, as nonspeaking players."</i>

I liked the surreal bits of this - especially when he goes to visit his daughter (who seems to live on some creepy children's show). The interactions with the top TV show actors (a black cop and a white cop) are also really good, as is the commentary on Asian American vs African American experience. The backstory of his father and mother - also good.

The book ends with a typical courtroom drama scene, in which it's difficult for the novel to avoid... um... typical courtroom drama speeches. This section in particular made me think a bit about what fiction can and can't do. The ending of this is basically a didactic speech. Or an essay, based on notes taken from a sociology course (indeed, a famous sociology book is credited in the book's linear notes). I liked the message of the speech, and found its content interesting, but it is what it is - a speech inserted into the novel to sum up its themes and make a point. The overall purpose of this novel is to communicate and convey a very clear point, and to not be ambiguous. It wants you to hear the message loud and clear. As a result, though, it arguably stops feeling like fiction at that point (which the author was obviously okay with, and many other readers will be as well). I was too, but ultimately, my personal preference is for fiction that is a bit more subtle.

However, the overall execution of the book is very well done - writing it as a screenplay was a good choice, and the use of humour is fantastic. Overall, a fun book with a creative premise.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.