With his unsettling, deadpan humor and heartbreaking honesty, Willis weaves in and out of multiple roles throughout the novel - he is Generic Asian Man Number Three, Special Guest Star, Kung Fu Guy, and even Kung Fu Dad. And the only quasi-protagonist that an Asian man can ever be is Kung Fu Guy. He is tired of being Dead Asian Man or Generic Asian Man. Imprisoned in perpetual poverty and tired racial tropes by systemic causes and by himself (hence the Chinatown-gates-turned-prison on the cover), protagonist Willis Wu is desperate to finally be just that - a protagonist. Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown” is not only beautifully moving but also mounts a shockingly explicit political criticism of U.S. Just like its exterior, this book is beautiful and jarring at once. There is something oddly magnetic about seeing a familiar Chinatown gate, estranged by its uncanny merging with another familiar symbol - the prison. A purposefully distressed red cover is simultaneously reminiscent of a red packet, a newspaper cover, and a playbill.At the center is a small Chinatown gate the interior area of the gate frames are filled by what resembles a prison or a birdcage. “Interior Chinatown” is that kind of book. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes, you can take one look at a book and know it’s going to be good.
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