This year the Arroyo Book Club will once again be participating in NEA’s Big Read program. This year the book we will be reading is Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. Let’s turn to what the NEA has to say about this book:
Charles Yu’s critically acclaimed second novel Interior Chinatown is “satire at its best, a shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood…presented, perfectly, in the sharply hewed format of a screenplay” (Vanity Fair). Winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, the novel is "a moving exploration of race and assimilation" (San Francisco Chronicle), "both rollicking entertainment and scathing commentary" (Booklist), and "a parable for outcasts feeling invisible in this fast-moving world" (Kirkus Reviews). It tells the story of Willis Wu, who has only ever been cast as the Generic Asian Man. Consigned to bit roles in the background of a procedural cop show, he dreams of playing Kung Fu Guy, the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain—or so he has always been told. The novel “recalls the humorous and heartfelt short stories of George Saunders, the metafictional high jinks of Mark Leyner, and films like The Truman Show” (New York Times). It’s “honest, funny, sad, and necessary…” (Thrillist).
Find more information about the book at its NEA Big Read site.
As always there will be copies of the book on the shelf under the window by the Circulation Desk. Since it is the big read there are limited copies. There are plenty of e-copies of the book available via Overdrive / Libby. Search author/title within either app to find it.
We will meet to discuss the book on May 27 at 3:00. The meeting will be a hybrid meeting so you may join us in person or via Zoom. Email ayosco@lapl.org if you have any questions or would like the meeting link.
