I originally ignored Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown (2020) because I thought the faux Chinese take-out aesthetics of its cover was a clear indication that it was the kind of tired, identity-based schlock that seems to come out of the big publishing houses like clockwork. Thanks but no thanks. Not long after, Covid hit, time lost its meaning, and amidst the endless doomscrolling, I have a hazy memory of seeing that it became a NYT bestseller, won the National Book Award, optioned for a TV show, etc. Yeah yeah, whatever, maybe I'll get it on paperback.

A couple years later, I stumbled upon a paperback version in the stacks. Not only did I recognize the covers of the books next to it, I realized I had already read not one, but two of them: Third Class Superhero (2006) and How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe (2010). How embarrassing. That Charles Yu, FML. To be fair, I was a lot less conscious about my reading at that point in my life. I remember them being quick reads, light science fiction, fun but forgettable. I guess he made it out of the ghettos of the sci-fi or As-Am lit sections without having to be a Ted Chiang. Good for him. So I bought a copy, put it on my "To Read" pile, and finally got around to it recently. I was surprised at what I found, and seem to still be processing some bits and pieces, days later.

Interior Chinatown goes down easy, not only because the screenplay styling of the text means that there are fewer words on each page, but because of its light-hearted, dialogue-driven narrative. Yu is a TV writer, most notably for HBO's Westworld, and the pacing and accessibility keep the pages turning. The main theme––if the title of the book, its main character, and formatting didn't give it away––is Asian-American representation in the media. You don't have to have a name like "Willis Wu" or "Charles Yu" to enjoy the novel, however. It's aimed at everybody, like orange chicken with fried rice.

But don't let the tone fool you. If you scratch its shiny veneer, you'll see that Interior Chinatown contains a surprisingly thorough, almost-allegorical exploration of what it means to see an East Asian face on the American screen. That said, this is no dull academic treatise, grandiloquent TED talk, or preachy op-ed. It is a funny, snappy story about a guy who wants to be the hero. In fact, it is precisely this overly familiar setup that forms a locus for its power. And it needs all the power it can get, because the monsters to be tackled are fearsome indeed.

Among the bestiary are race-based exploitation, silent and overt discrimination, societal ignorance of anti-Asian hate crimes, the persistence of stereotypes, Black-Asian racial relations, tokenism, the "bamboo ceiling," the exoticization of Asian women and demasculinization of Asian men, the model minority myth, white savior complexes, the dilemma of assimilation or alienation both in the US and "where you came from," and above all, the choice of whether to submit to the system for the slim chance to succeed on its terms––strengthening its stranglehold on everybody else in the process––or quit––at the cost of marginalizing yourself and your loved ones, as the machine simply turns to the next person in line. Can you be happy in your golden cage, or will the memories of what you had to do to get there keep you up at night? The hope is that this choice is a false one, but the entire apparatus is ever-present, ever-powerful, and ever-dedicated to making you believe that there is no other way.

Real "ha ha" stuff, huh? It actually is, and not even "ironically." Everything is couched in a way that makes it come off like a comic book, a real old-school comic book with buxom beauties on the front and dumb toys on the back. That's the master stroke. On the surface, it's speedrunning through the clichés of Asian America, but it's using them not only to be funny, but to point out their absurdities. The subtext runs deep. Yu, master code-switcher and a model minority story himself––abandoning a corporate law career in his late 30s to become a full-time writer––is really able to thread the needle, handling these heavy issues with a deft touch. Latasha Harlins, "Jin tha MC," and Jeremy Lin are distilled into a tink of coffee cups at craft services. Redlining, Vincent Chin, and "Two Wongs can make it White" are expressed as a handful of dollars shared among homesick graduate students. Stop Asian Hate, "No MSG!," and the American Dream become a note-perfect karaoke rendition of "Take Me Home, Country Roads," with the slightest whisper of a Taiwanese accent.

Yu has a quirky, readable writing style, with roots closer to "soft" sci-fi or "low" fantasy than "literary" fiction, but has emerged from the mountains of Wudang (or the cul-de-sacs of Irvine) with the polish of a white-shoe collegian straight off the pages of The New Yorker. A clumsier author would have made things overwrought, more suitable for a special "AAPI History Month" journal issue than something you can find at your local Barnes & Noble or airport bookstore. It's also surprisingly heartfelt, especially in the latter half of the book. The ending crescendo is brilliant, perfectly harmonizing the disparate elements before dropping them one-by-one, making it abundantly clear what is really being said. That raw material, in the hands of an all-star supporting cast including killer book agent Julie Barer and editor extraordinaire Tim O'Connell, has allowed Interior Chinatown to not only reach the highest echelons of the mainstream literary world, but to edge into the mainstream media world as well. Ultimately, it was adapted (defanged) into a Taika Waititi-directed, Mark Mothersbaugh-soundtracked 2024 TV show, with Yu himself at the helm, naturally. Half a world away from even Shang-Chi, but very respectable, bamboo ceiling notwithstanding. Older Brother would be proud.

Interior Chinatown doesn't provide answers to the deeper questions it raises, nor does it even address the basic facts. You're never told what year the story takes place, what city said Chinatown is located in, nor even all that much about the main character. But it doesn't matter. As "Generic Asian Guy #3," "Guest Star," or even "Kung Fu Guy," you are fungible, more of a category than an actual person. But in the way that abstraction can represent unity, unity can represent a collective will, and collective will can be the beginning of real change. Didn't Confucius say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step or something? Who hasn't been presented with the golden cage, walked around it, and asked themselves: "Is this really all that I've been working so hard for?"

If you're looking to stay 100% surface level, Interior Chinatown is probably not for you. As a pure plotted novel, it's a clipshow of tropes, too short for much substantive development. But for anyone who can handle some play between text and subtext––especially if you're a film buff, have thought about socio-political issues, or know a little Asian-American history––I give it my strongest recommendation.