INTERIOR CHINATOWN

YU, CHARLES

a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play. 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 or even disgraced son, but always he is relegated to a prop. yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in chinatown 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?