Written as a novel-in-a-screenplay, Charles Yu’s fourth book Interior Chinatown is both a biting satire of Hollywood stereotypes and a tender reflection on family, immigration, and what it means to be American. On the crime procedural drama Black and White, in which two police officers-a black man and white woman-fight increasingly ludicrous crimes, Wu has worked his way up to the role of Generic Asian Man Number Three/Delivery Guy, but his ultimate goal of playing Kung Fu Guy, the pinnacle of Asian cinema, is just out of reach. This is the predicament that narrator Willis Wu, a restaurant worker living in a dingy Chinatown SRO, finds himself in. Limited to one-dimensional roles like Egg Roll Cook, Young Dragon Lady, and Striving Immigrant, there’s no way to advance beyond the exoticism or “perpetual foreigner” status that comes with existing in the margins of America. In the world of Interior Chinatown, Asian Americans don’t get to play the dashing leads in TV shows.
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