I was like, Well, whatamI writing?
says the author, 44.
There were times I was confused and had to work my way through that tunnel.
Credit: Penguin Random House
Yu specializes in metatextual and thematically complex material.
It hurt my brain, says Yu of working on the latter series.
For me, it was humbling to be in that writers room.
Tina Chiou
It was really original minds.
It was me feeling, Wow, what is America?
My parents have lived here 50 years.
After that election, they started to feel, Was I ever really American?
(Yu grew up in L.A. and went to college at U.C.
Berkeley, where he studied biochemistry.)
But he admits he had to read up on the subject of Chinatown.
Its not a place I had strong ties to, he says.
When my mom first read the title, she was like, What do you know about Chinatown?
Fair question, Mom!
Youre going straight to the heart of my anxiety!
