Interior Chinatown is both darkly funny and painfully tragic in its portrayal of the plight of the generic Asian male. Through his protagonist, Willis Wu, Charles Yu tells the tale of Hollywood's penchant for promoting clichés about Asians and Asian-Americans with a character who both plays the generic Asian male (hoping to be Kung Fu guy one day) and treats the narrative of his life in much the same way — as playing a role in a movie.

There are two key takeaways for readers, in my opinion. The obvious one: although humorous, this is also an indictment against the pop-culture stereotypes of Asian Americans and the Asian American experience. It's a fair one, no question. But then, there is an unintended takeaway.

In one part of the book, Yu outlines an Asian American life, from the cradle to the grave. It's brisk: by young adulthood, stereotypes (job assignments) undo the life of one is promised in childhood (despite a successful education) and that leads to a loss of individual identity (they become the thing they do or they group they are assigned to more than the person they might have been). But I think Yu misses one critical point to his observation (as do many people who write about the plight of individual identity in a complex society). This experiences aren't limited to a single race. All people experience this in America and, indeed, around the world.

We are all born with infinite possibilities but most allow themselves to become absorbed with the social hierarchy we are born into at the expense of ourselves. The hardship is that we must all strive to overcome it (and only a few people ever do).