Let’s get this out of the way: I like David Foster Wallace’s writing. I find value in his craft writing, and I love his “nonfiction” (which, yes, of
course it’s not really nonfiction? Did everyone miss the part where writers are encouraged and sometimes even god-willing
paid to lie? It’s not like we’re presidential press secretaries for fucks’ sake) and I love all his wild-eyed theorizing about The State Of American Fiction even though a lot of it is outdated and I wouldn’t have even agreed with it while he was alive.
Why I love it is that he takes meta stuff and finds the truth and emotion in it. The very thing people roll their eyes out now, the whole idea of “New Sincerity” to me the fact that he ties ridiculous imagery and winking and meta jokes about authorship to the idea that fiction is supposed to make you feel something, and specifically to make you less lonely, is why people still read it.
Book Club: Charles Yu on dead ends, self-doubt and Kung Fu latimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from latimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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As Charles Yu wrote “Interior Chinatown,” he worried readers wouldn’t be interested in a satirical novel about how Hollywood and society trap Asian Americans in stereotypical roles.
They almost never get to be the leading man. Instead, they get to be “Generic Asian Man Number Three / Delivery Guy.”
“I wondered if I would run into people who would say, ‘What is the big deal is it really such a big problem?’” recalls Yu, who joins the Los Angeles Times Book Club on May 27. “I thought I’d get skepticism. Does this story really need to be told?”
The author’s self-doubt turned out to be off the mark. “Interior Chinatown” received rave reviews and won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction in November. And after the pandemic triggered increased anti-Asian harassment and violence, Yu’s witty but pointed indictment of prejudice has resonated with readers in a way he never envisioned.
A Short History of Asian American Character Actors vulture.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from vulture.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.