Join Champion Public Library for our Let’s Talk About It book discussion with “Interior Chinatown” by Charles Yu at 5:30 PM on Thursday, March 5th. Dr. Vivian Thomlinson will serve as the evening’s scholar.
Willis Wu doesn’t see himself as a protagonist; he’s just Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or Disgraced Son, but always just a prop. Each day, he leaves his tiny Chinatown SRO room to enter the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a cop show, is always filming. He’s a bit player there, too, dreaming of being Kung Fu Guy—the highest role for someone like him. 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, Interior Chinatown offers a unique perspective on pop culture, assimilation, and immigration. In this novel, Charles Yu delivers a profound meditation on identity, challenging the limits placed by stereotypes while telling his most moving and masterful story yet.
This program will be presented by scholar Dr. Vivian Thomlinson. Dr. Thomlinson earned her MA and PhD in English from Texas Woman’s University. Thomlinson taught English literature at Cameron University from 1986-1994 and again from 1998-2014. Thomlinson was awarded the National Carnegie Foundation for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching for Oklahoma in 2006 and Cameron University’s most prestigious teaching award, the Hackler Award, Cameron Professor of the Year. Thomlinson has traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East and is currently restoring a Queen Ann Victorian home in Gainesville, TX.
Books, services, and other materials for this series are provided by Let’s Talk About It, a program of Oklahoma Humanities. Generous funding and support for this series was provided by Kirkpatrick Family Fund, McCasland Foundation, and Oklahoma City University. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these programs do not necessarily represent those of Oklahoma Humanities.
This program is free and open to the public. Copies of the books are available at the library. For more information, call the Champion Public Library at (580) 223-3164 or visit us at 601 Railway Express in Ardmore. The Champion Public Library is a branch of the Southern Oklahoma Library System.
