Book Confessions of an Ex-Ballerina

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?

After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.

Four rulers. Monsters cloaked in crowns.

They’re not just powerful—they’re primal.

And now, they want me.

I wasn’t supposed to be part of the Choosing.

I forged my way in, wearing a stranger’s face, chasing whispers of my lost sister.

I planned to seduce. To manipulate. To survive.

But I didn’t plan on them.

The way they watch me like prey.

The way their magic coils around mine like a promise.

The way they say my name like they already own it.

Each man wants to break me in his own way. Take me in his own way. Together? They might unmake me entirely.