So clever! Such innovative storytelling! This book is structured as a script, written in a second person narrative with the "you" being the main character, Willis Wu. The world of Interior Chinatown is both meta and metaphorical; the lines are blurred between real life and the TV show in which Willis Wu plays bit parts.
Charles Yu makes on-point social commentary of Asian American representation and stereotypes that is both scathing and funny. He shines a light on societal perceptions of Asian Americans and their struggle to find a place in a world where white and black people are center stage and Asians are relegated to the margins, seen as perpetual foreigners as described on page 119: "To be yellow in America. A special guest star, forever the guest." The relationships, observations, and emotions are authentic and familiar, in my opinion clearly written by an Asian American writing about what he knows. The portrayal of Willis's aging immigrant parents was particularly poignant.
Older Brother sums up the problem in a climactic scene on page 228: "[W]hen you think of American, what color do you see? White? Black? ... We've been here 200 years... Why doesn't this face register as American? ... If we haven't cracked the code of what it's like to be inside this face, then how can we explain it to anyone else?" Over the course of the book, Willis learns to be more comfortable in his own skin and comes to realize that he can pursue his own goals, he doesn't have to be limited by what others have prescribed for him to achieve.
I especially enjoyed the "Generic Asian Kid" montage on page 157, a universal sequence with no specific Asian American references, beautifully descriptive, of childhood highs and lows spanning all the familiar scenes that make for nostalgic memories. Also, I appreciated the list of anti-Asian U.S. laws on pages 215-216 and 259, which made explicit the systemic racism Asian Americans have faced.
