Best of the Best Book Club: "Interior Chinatown" by Charles Yu

Join Coronado Public Library's newest book club, the Best of the Best! We will meet regularly on the 4th Tuesday of each month to discuss books that have won major awards. Receive reminder emails about our meeting by registering below. Registration is not required. 

In March we will be discussing the 2022 National Book Award Winner, Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, 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 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—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.

Place the book on hold on the Coronado Public Library catalog by clicking here or check out the e-book or audiobook on the Libby or Cloud Library apps.