

But Yu’s voice, sensibility, and approach are unique, especially in the ways he wrings humor and pathos from stripped-down syntax and seemingly passive protagonists.Interior Chinatown tells the story of Willis Wu, an American actor of Taiwanese descent.

“There’s some of the cerebral gamesmanship of Jonathan Lethem, the resigned sadness of Kurt Vonnegut, the Phil Dickian paranoiac mistrust of consumer culture. As readers, we are the better for Yu’s astonishing mix of wild imagination and meticulous restraint.” “What Yu does very well–it is a long list, but this may be its most notable entry– is to create strange and disturbingly normal alternate realities. “Yu’s workmanlike sentences are unexpectedly emotive, while also being almost always very funny. “Yu is a superhero of rendering human consciousness and emotion in the language of engineering and science.”

“I don’t know if there’s a better story-bending talent at work than Charles Yu, since the rise of George Saunders.” Anita Felicelli, San Francisco Chronicle ABOUT CHARLES YU “Interior Chinatown solders together mordant wit and melancholic whimsy to produce a moving exploration of race and assimilation that shouldn’t be missed by intellectually adventurous readers.” “Incisively examines the Asian-American reality of “being perpetual foreigners” in the United States, a minority whose story “will never fit into Black and White.” “Interior Chinatown … recalls the humorous and heartfelt short stories of George Saunders, the metafictional high jinks of Mark Leyner and films like ‘The Truman Show.’”

“One of the funniest books of the year has arrived, a delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire.” Club, Lit Hub, Woman’s Day, The Rumpus, Thrillist, and more. Named a Most Anticipated Book by: Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, The A.V. John Mandel, National Book Award finalist and author of The Glass Hotel “ An extraordinary book by an immensely talented writer” Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer
