CHARLES YU TALKS ABOUT TV

The screenplay format unlocked a new world for me, in which I promptly got lost. It’s not a long book, but there’s some trickiness in terms of, what is the reality of this world that Willis lives in. The first phase was actually quite different–it was like, a bunch of fables about people coming to a new land. It might even–depending on how you count it, it was 5, 6, or maybe even almost 7 years.

It’s just fun to be part of that conversation, to be on the long list and all that.ĪB: Novels are also just more intimate and personal, I guess, but especially this book, which I know took you many years to write.ĬY: It’s really true, yeah, you can hide behind the show and the big marketing campaign, but when it’s just one name on the cover on the book, then you can’t hide.

It was incredibly gratifying and weird and shocking, and it’s just also, as much of an honor as it is, it also just makes you think, look at all these other nominees and finalists, there are so many great books every year. I haven’t personally felt that with a book until this time.

I mean, when you’re sitting in the room, you know at a minimum, hundreds of thousands, and maybe millions of people might see this.

CHARLES YU TALKS ABOUT TV

In TV land, you’re right, it’s a very different level of scrutiny. Does that feel more public?ĬY: That’s true. I mean, it’s public for a little while, and then it sort of like, goes into the sea of books, and the award, just at least for some window of time, made it feel like, oh, people are going to be paying attention on a level that I’m not used to.ĪB: Interesting, I would think you would be used to that, since you’re a TV writer as well. Charles Yu, author of the National Book Award winning novel, Interior Chinatown, answers our questions about his funny, challenging, and moving book.Īmy Brinker: Now that Interior Chinatown is in paperback and some time has passed, has anything changed about how you think about the book? I mean, winning the National Book Award was huge…Ĭharles Yu: Yeah, it was–it was really shocking, because, but even when you publish a book, or at least in my experience so far, it doesn’t feel like it’s a public thing, if that makes any sense.

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