Inside Chinatown: A Novel

Willis Wu doesn’t understand himself because the protagonist in his personal life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Generally he will get to be Background Oriental Making a Bizarre Face and even Disgraced Son, however all the time he’s relegated to a prop. But every single day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, the place Black and White, a procedural cop present, is in perpetual manufacturing. He’s a bit participant right here, too, however he goals of being Kung Fu Man—probably the most revered function that anybody who seems to be like him can attain. Or is it?

After stumbling into the highlight, Willis finds himself launched right into a wider world than he’s ever identified, discovering not solely the key historical past of Chinatown, however the buried legacy of his circle of relatives. Infinitely ingenious and deeply private, exploring the themes of popular culture, assimilation, and immigration—Inside Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most shifting, daring, and masterful novel but.

"Recent and delightful. . . . Inside Chinatown represents one more stellar vacation spot within the journey of a sui generis creator of seemingly limitless ability and ambition.” —The New York Instances E book Evaluation