


Eight years later, we are gifted Interior Chinatown, a novel as innovative and witty as his last but with a laser focus on engaging with a large-scale cultural conversation. Most recently came Sorry Please Thank You, a 2012 collection that features a service by which characters can outsource their grief, steps to take in order to troubleshoot your existence, and a beginner’s guide to being human.
Charles yu tm 31 how to#
It was followed by How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, his debut novel, which follows the mechanic Charles Yu whose life goes awry when he becomes part of a time loop while searching for his father. Yu has two other books to his credit: the 2006 short story collection Third Class Superhero is a root source for Yu’s bag of tricks, including a break-up told in equations, motherly doppelgängers, and the walkthrough of a marathon gamer. Yu’s newest release, Interior Chinatown, transports us to a setting that is both our world, the “real world,” and a screenplay, in which protagonist Willis Wu awaits his chance to become more than just “Background Oriental Male.” Interior Chinatown is an inventive look into the world of cinema, where a stable of Asian actors wilts under the bright lights of stereotype and cliché, and where it takes everything we have to become perhaps the very thing that trapped us from the start. In his 2010 novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, he wields a time machine-the TM-31-with the wry yet heartfelt voice of a different Charles Yu, the novel’s humble time machine mechanic. Charles Yu is well-known for his thorough and enrapturing world-building.
