Publisher – Pantheon Books

Published – Out Now

Price – £12.99 hardback £6.17 Kindle eBook

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist 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 always he is 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. Or is it?

After 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. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration

Have you ever imagined your life is a story or a movie? Do you adapt certain personas for say work, meeting people or going online? Occasionally culture considers us a certain type of person. I say Geek to someone and it creates a particular image but also consider how our society labels someone who is an immigrant or say from a particular race. Those ‘roles’ or stereotypes can often be amazingly harmful. This is the key theme Charles Yu explores in the brilliant Interior Chinatown which explores in particular how Chinese American stereotypes are both portrayed by the media and then also in society both outside and inside the community.

The story centres on the world known as Chinatown – here not a particular part of a town as we may be familiar with but one that represents all the East Asian American communities we have seen in the media. Everything is a film or tv story and everyone goes through life seeking roles – such as ‘Background Oriental Male’ or ‘Generic Asian Man Number One’ and Willis Wu dreams of the starring role – the only one man can be at a time - ‘Kung Fu Guy’ who would then get all the key roles in life. Then he can age gracefully into ‘Old Asian Man’. Willis thinks he has a shot on the popular TV show Black and White with a guest star role, but the culture of US media can be unforgiving, and Willis finds he may actually have a life and family to start caring about. Can he break out of central casting or will he be punished for getting ideas above his station?

This is an excellently crafted tale taking the idea of a film script to explore cultural stereotypes. Yu explores the history of the Chinese American community in America and the way media portrays this both externally and internally within the community (and merges this with other Asian cultures as that is of course easier than the truth); how it influences and arguably can limit/control what someone can become. Yu plays with the stereotypes and in Willis’ attempt to make it big on a show like Black and White that promotes itself as a multicultural show, but we start to suspect the game is rigged.

Initially the script approach seems strange, but this centres Yu’s idea that media portrayals to kids growing up (and in particular Asian males) creates a generational stereotype even some men believe is what they should be. But this also allows Yu to explore the larger history of this world – the story often looks at the Hollywood Chinatown that actually employed members of the community to act as the most stereotypical Chinese community you can imagine; it explores the traditional ‘very special Chinese crime culture episode’ so many tv shows tend to have at some point in their runs which readers will definitely recognise; plus Yu explores how media seems obsessed with showing how Black and Asian citizens in any show or film when meeting must immediately be seen in conflict with each other and why white culture may want that to be the case. Yu’s use of all these tropes is spot on and will both in its use make you laugh then cringe at how cynical these portrayals are.

But the novel while clever succeeds because it has emotional depth. Throughout the tale as we meet Willis’ parents and their love story or Willis falling in love with Karen another guest star but with a more promising career path in front of her. Yu gives these characters warmth, history, and emotional depth – they’re not tv background characters they have experienced repression in their own countries; racism in their new home and they’re still trying to find where they should fit in. Karen and Willis’s romance does not go smoothly as he finds Karen who is much keener to break out her career in different directions and genres means he has to start facing his own male pride at the risk of losing his child’s love. Yu is actually exploring a multi-generation story where Willis as a second-generation citizen now trying to find out where he fits in and the hope is for the future. His attempts to break roles means he finds himself in a strange court trial for daring to break out of Chinatown’s grip, but Yu uses this to explore the US’s many racist laws limiting voting, education, and immigration for the last two hundred years. Yu succeeds in making the reader see Willis and the rest of the community as individuals with lives and dreams of their own (and for the generations to come) and not what we are often shown on the screen. It’s challenging and for me very enlightening.

Interior Chinatown is very much about what the Blurred Boundaries category is about a tale that plays with genre and medium to make its own story. It’s entertaining, thoughtful and has a huge amount of love for its community. An excellent read and highly recommended!