It’s also a rare but welcome event when something I write actually makes me feel something, because then I think, ‘Oh, I’m onto something here.’ And that happened a few times in the book, particularly in the stories of Willis with either his parents or with Phoebe later on in the book. I like when a line I write makes me laugh or even smile, which doesn’t happen that often.

Was it sometimes painful to write parts of this book? And my editor, Tim O’Connell at Pantheon, actually had a lot of input, but only after I had already kind of fleshed out the concept.

So I wrote a good chunk of it, and then I did share it with my editor. I felt like in order to execute this concept, I would have to really do it before showing it to anyone. How much, or what kind of, advice did you accept from editors in deciding what to include or exclude from your story? You’re definitely walking a line between the stereotype of the perpetual foreigner and identity. These responses have been edited and condensed for clarity. You’ll find a selection of his answers below and can watch senior correspondent Jeffrey Brown’s interview with him here.

Written as a teleplay, the book offers a darkly humorous commentary on racism and representation in the entertainment industry. Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes-Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu's most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.Charles Yu, author of our February pick for the NewsHour-New York Times book club, recently answered questions submitted by readers on Facebook about his satirical novel, “Interior Chinatown”. Or is it?Īfter stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he's ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family, and what that means for him, in today's America. but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy-the highest aspiration he can imagine for a Chinatown denizen. 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. Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: he's merely Generic Asian Man. 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.

Interior chinatown by charles yu