#CHARLES YU TV#

This is where Yu’s story takes an improbable twist. It’s like I don’t play an instrument, I play a shoebox guitar I made in my garage.” “Even to this day, it all feels a bit D.I.Y. “Not having an M.F.A., having a day job, there was always a feeling like I came in through the back door, or at least the side door,” he said. Still, in Yu’s mind, he wasn’t really a writer. The book was well-reviewed and sold decently. Together they sold his first collection, “Third Class Superhero,” which was published in 2006. But one in 50 stories would get published.” The stories were examinations of anxiety and heartbreak, usually framed by a high-concept conceit, such as the travails of a sad-sack superhero named Moisture Man. So Yu started writing short stories of his own. Homes, Donald Barthelme - writers who grappled with those same questions in bracing ways. It was there, while studying for the bar, that he picked up books of fiction that blew his mind: Saunders, A.M. Instead, he went to law school at Columbia. 28.ĭespite these inclinations, he never believed he would be a writer. “Interior Chinatown” - the title puns on the screenplay convention for describing locations - recalls the humorous and heartfelt short stories of George Saunders, the metafictional high jinks of Mark Leyner and films like “ The Truman Show.”Ĭharles Yu’s novel “Interior Chinatown” comes out Jan.

#CHARLES YU TV#

Wu resides in a version of Chinatown that’s both a real place and the backdrop to an ongoing police procedural TV show called “Black and White.” Its inhabitants live their lives as well as the parts assigned to them: Disgraced Son, Delivery Guy, Young Dragon Lady, Silent Henchman or the most coveted role of all, Kung Fu Guy.

It’s the story of Willis Wu, a young man who’s struggling to figure out what his role is in life, literally. He published three books, and his fourth, the novel “Interior Chinatown,” is set to come out at the end of this month. He worked as a lawyer by day and wrote late into the night. The boy also wrote fiction, but not until he was an adult. When he grew up, he became a corporate lawyer.Įxcept, as with all good stories, there’s more to the story than that. The boy spent his days watching “The Twilight Zone” reruns, playing Street Fighter II, reading “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and thinking about where he might fit in. Once upon a time, there was a boy born in Los Angeles to a Taiwanese mother and father. Charles Yu is very interested in stories, both the stories we tell ourselves and the stories that are told to us, so let’s start with a story about him.

Charles yu