Interior Chinatown: A Novel (National Book Award Winner)

Written by:
Charles Yu
Narrated by:
Joel De La Fuente

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
29
Narrator
9
Release Date
January 2020
Duration
4 hours 21 minutes
Summary
2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER

'One of the funniest books of the year ... a delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire.' —The Washington Post

From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except by one person, his mother. Who says to him: Be more.
 
Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes, Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterly novel yet.

'Fresh and beautiful ... Interior Chinatown represents yet another stellar destination in the journey of a sui generis author of seemingly limitless skill and ambition.” —The New York Times Book Review
Reviews
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Christine K.

For a book exploring such hardship, it is very funny! Very cleverly done; I really enjoyed the blurring between real and imagined/staged. The narrator does different voices which really helps since there is a lot of dialogue. As a first gen immigrant, I found so much of the book relatable. I highly recommend to any first gen kids or adults—doesn’t matter where your parents immigrated from, they’re all the same in some respects.

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Anonymous

Didn’t enjoy this title.

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