Book No. 15 of 2020
This story blurs the boundaries of reality so much that reading it was an unmooring experience. Its second person narrative and screenplay format were very novel for me, but its themes about representation and identity are extremely familiar territory.
Personally I found the first half or so of the book slower going, and it took me a while to get used to the self-referential life-as-screenplay conceit. But the story gets going in the later half and the climactic act, framed as a courtroom drama, features a set of absolutely brilliant monologues laying out the paradox of the Asian-American experience being excluded from the literally black-and-white dichotomy of race in America—how the established model for acceptable Asian excellence and assimilation in America is still ultimately a siloed role that doesn’t challenge the established hierarchy of who gets to be considered American. As the book itself says, “Someone stood up and said all the shit that we never say, didn’t even know how to say.”
Similar Reads
Other books that erode the line between truth and fantasy in order to criticize narrative tropes: Trust Exercise by Susan Choi and Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Another book that uses the courtroom drama to examine the lens through which Asian-Americans are seen: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
Another book that critiques the Ameri-centric lens through which Asian stories are viewed in film/TV: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen