Category Archives: Friday Reads

Most people would run away from a boy who runs around lighting things on fire and destroying everything in his wake. But not Mercy Thompson. She ran at first, then looked again and saw the scared little boy in the middle of the flames. Burning everything because he knew no other way to exist and deal with the world.

This young boy had been stolen by the fae as a young boy and shaped by dark forces into something he was never meant to exist: a fire touched shapeshifter who burns down the world. When everyone else ran or tried to take him out, Mercy saw something different and treated him with kindness and humanity. We’ll casually ignore that she can shapeshift into a coyote, was raised by werewolves, and hangs out with vampires. Let’s not get bogged down by details.

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs became one of my favorites in the Mercy Thompson book series because of how this character learns and grows over time. It took one person to see him for who he was before he could start to take small steps towards being who he should have been all his life: a kind, gentle boy who wants to use his flames for good. His name is Aiden.

He comes onto the scene in a chaotic battle filled with anger and flames, knowing nothing of the human world except that he must burn everything around him to survive. Human connection, kindness and understanding are foreign concepts. He knew only a world of brutal captivity and servitude at the hands of the fae, doing as he was told.

Then he was pulled out of that world and tossed into a boisterous house filled with caring werewolves and camaraderie. Aiden had no idea what to do with kindness, assuming everyone was going to hurt him eventually. The transition was brutal and lasted several books. Between the pages, his journey towards living a new and better life silently continued.

Like learning how to live on a different planet, with people entirely different from yourself who connect and show care in different ways. You may have seen a similar scenario play out when people who grew up in less than happy circumstances try to navigate a comparatively normal world. Learning a new culture, new societal norms, and entirely new ways of showing up and existing in the world. Learning a new language of care and empathy.

In most academic articles and job training programs, they call this transition ‘trauma-informed librarianship, or ‘trauma-informed management’. Yet the training programs and guides I’ve seen don’t always reflect the lived experience of people who make the brutally hard transition from fully unlearning their own life and relearning patterns and behaviors they had never seen.

Mercy became the example Aiden could copy and learn from to figure out how to live life in the way he deserved. She didn’t start and stop at ‘well, sometimes he burns things’. She dug deeper and helped him become an emotional being who could make his own decisions and shape the life he wanted, on his own terms. Not everyone has Mercy in their lives.

Aiden’s story is more realistic in the way people actually learn and grow. There are points of forward progress, then frustrating setbacks while the outside world looks on in confusion at behaviors that oscillate from positive to negative, connected to distant, back and forth. This oscillation is not always covered in these starkly academic training programs and guides. Reading through stories of how trauma occurred and which events shaped a person is not the same as reading the messy story of healing and growth.

Werewolf, fae, vampire, and fantasy books are quietly riddled with these stories of healing and growth. Tracking story arcs as people move from a place of trauma and pain to wonder and excitement at what the future holds, then making that future happen. The path is not linear, and it looks different for everyone. It’s just easier to read about when the trauma happened in a distant, fantastical land that could never be seen in our world.

I read fantasy novels not to escape from the world, but to see the dark and scary parts of our world more clearly. So next time you see someone lashing out in a fit of rage, know that there is probably something that caused that behavior. The Mercys of the world are equipped to identify and handle this situation, but most people aren’t. Sadly, the cruel hard truth is that most people should probably run to save themselves. It’s hard to heal, and it’s hard to be a healer.

With more trauma-informed librarian courses coming out, and communities half-expecting libraries to take on the role of social worker, this seemed like a good time to put out the reminder that it’s not our job to fix people. I’ve seen people walk out of those training courses ready to take on the world, but with no lived experience of how the healing process works. Those courses exist to help you make sense of strange behavior, connect people who request referrals with connections to appropriately support resources in the right way, and keep yourself and your patrons safe. 

Some courses claim to train you to be a trauma-informed ally, but those are loaded words that should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s not our job to heal people. We may sometimes play a small role, and we can exhibit kindness and compassion, but we’re not social workers. We’re not therapists. And it’s not on us to take on the flames and burn to heal the world. 

So if you’re moved by the Aidens of the world, that’s amazing. But please look for these three things before you try to support the healing process: 1) Make sure you yourself know the pattern of healing and growth; 2) You need the emotional capacity and skilled technique to help without being dragged into an oscillating vortex; 3) The person you’re helping needs to be ready to heal and change. It also helps to have a trained therapist or support network in the background.

As librarians, we tend to be natural-born helpers and healers. But this story can help you see in exaggerated, dramatic detail what it takes to actually heal over time, and how the role of the healer requires grit and a realistic approach to change. So read on to find out how people realistically grow from wanting to burn down the world to trying to build back better. Then how to help without getting burned.

I first learned of Nick Hornby’s 1992 memoir, Fever Pitch, in a May 29, 2026 NPR story about Arsenal winning England’s Premier League trophy for the first time in 22 years. I bought a copy for my son, an ardent Arsenal FC fan, thinking he might be interested. I got to it first though, and it turned into a good summer diversion—especially when paired with the World Cup!

Fever Pitch begins in 1968 when an 11-year-old Hornby attends his first Arsenal game. The book is divided into three parts, covering the years 1968-1975, 1976-1986, and 1986-1992. These parts are further divided into short chronological segments, each identified with a particular match (e.g., “Arsenal v Newcastle 17.4.71”). Unlike most memoirs, which leave the reader better acquainted with the writer, Fever Pitch has a narrower focus: the experience of being a sports fan. Emotionally, it is a detailed explication of despair and drudgery interspersed with rare bursts of rapture. And it is pretty specific to association football (what we in the U.S. call soccer) in England.

Someone steeped in English football lore would probably have different takeaways from this memoir than I did–references to famous Arsenal players of the past, as well as game play descriptions, went over my head. Still, I learned a lot. As part of his commentary Hornby references team origins dating back to the 1800s, football specials (trains chartered to transport fans to away games), hooliganism, terrace culture, and the tragic inadequacy of 100+-year-old stadiums built for smaller crowds. He also discusses fan racism toward black players, which he loathes. And while he admits he could stop going to games in protest, he also confesses “part of me, however, knows that I can’t stop because of the strength of my obsession” (183).

Toward the end of the memoir, as Hornby enters his early thirties, football is still his obsession. He describes it as “tyranny” and “a disability that has to be worked around” (205). It has seen him through his teen years following his parents’ divorce, and the depression that plagued him for most of the 1980s (something he mentions in passing and after the fact). But his life is starting to change. In “Arsenal v Coventry 22.8.89” he reveals that he’s acquired a mortgage and an accountant; his nightlife preferences have evolved; and he buys an Arsenal season-ticket for the seats in lieu of standing as he’d done in the past (224).

Fever Pitch ends in 1992, shortly after Arsenal wins the 1991 League Championship. We never really get to see Hornby on the other side of his transition to established adulthood. And as he, himself, states in a 2015 interview with The Guardian, “If I were to write Fever Pitch now, it would be older, wiser and more boring because one of the things that made the book was its lack of perspective.” If you find perspective overrated and you are a fan of English football, however, this might be the memoir for you!

Hornby, Nick. Fever Pitch. Riverhead Books, 1998.

Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song is a series of reflections put together by an experienced architect of rhythm and rhyme. For decades, Dylan has operated as arguably the ultimate poet-songwriter of the American mythos. In this collection of 66 essays, he turns his sharp, lyrical eye away from his own catalog to dissect the work of others, delivering a masterclass in musical appreciation that is deeply subjective, beautifully eccentric, and unabashedly hip. The most striking element of the book is its writing style; at first, I thought it came across as pretentious, but then I appreciated it as simply authentic Dylan. He rejects academic analysis. Instead, he leans into a hard-boiled, streetwise, pulp-fiction vernacular that feels incredibly timely and timeless. He writes in punchy, rhythmic sentences, often slipping into the second person to drag the reader right into the emotional stuff of a song. His prose mimics the cadence of a Beat poet or a 1940s film noir detective, filled with grit, smoke, and late-night desperation. He doesn’t just explain a track; he riffs on it, creating parallel narratives that match the mood of the music.

As a Nobel laureate in Literature, Dylan’s reputation as a master wordsmith precedes him, and this book reinforces that legacy. You are not reading a standard critic; you are reading a practitioner of the craft. He understands the architecture of a rhyme. He decodes the hidden nuances of simple phrasing. He honors raw, emotional truth over technical perfection. When he analyzes tracks by artists like Hank Williams, Nina Simone, or Elvis Costello, he exposes the very DNA of songwriting. His insights are poetic shortcuts. He captures the essence of a track in a single, vivid metaphor where a traditional reviewer would take three pages.

The book is chaotic and structured all at once, with clear intention. Dylan jumps from rockabilly to punk, and from country to soul, without a care for chronological order. He uses the songs as launching pads for brief, wildly entertaining rants on modern life, bluegrass, marriage, and the loss of the human touch in digital recording. He cares about music, and the book is a deeply personal curation. The omissions are just as loud as the inclusions, revealing the specific, roots-heavy landscape that feeds Dylan’s own creativity.

Given all this, Dylan is not without commentary on modern media:

Turns out, the best way to shut people up isn’t to take away their forum – it’s to give them all their own separate pulpits. Ultimately most folks will listen to what they already know and read what they already agree with. They will devour pale retreads of the familiar and perhaps never get to discover they might have a taste for Shakespeare or flamenco dancing. It’s the equivalent of letting an eight-year-old pick their own diet.

The Philosophy of Modern Song is a vital addition to Dylan’s body of work. It is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand how America’s greatest songwriter listens to music. It proves that even in his eighties, Bob Dylan remains the coolest, most unpredictable voice in American letters.

The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan, 2022, Simon & Schuster

If summertime travel is in your future, you could enjoy some small talk with an outgoing stranger while on your way to your destination—and what would be the harm in that? Well, Patricia Highsmith is happy to remind you, behind that charming face, there could be more than just a hot mess who seems to want to “share” the armrest. They might also want to “share” some murder.

Highsmith’s novels have been made into many enjoyable, uncomfortable movies and shows—the character of Tom Ripley alone has attracted several adaptations. Strangers on a Train was her first published novel, and was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock a year later, and remains a wonderful cautionary tale about how a little bit of weakness can be exploited to completely ruin someone’s life. Both Hitchcock and Highsmith were equal-opportunity haters, and their loathing extended to their own identities. This most famous movie adaptation of the novel does change some things—it takes advantage of the architecture of Washington, DC, for one thing, to provide stark contrasts. In the book, our “hero,” Guy, is an architect, not a tennis player; on film, his athleticism is an obvious attraction for the stranger on the train. On the page, Guy knows he can build a life he knows he should want, but the structure cannot hold on shaky ground.

Somehow, the novel is even less generous towards the female characters, if you can believe it; but Highsmith had a low opinion of everyone, after all–especially those she knew she was not supposed to like as much as did. Cold war paranoia combines with the darkness before one of the dawns of society’s acceptance of diversities, and shows how living in the shadows can be dangerous and damaging to our perspectives of what we are willing to accept in others, and in ourselves. A quick read, and a story you might be familiar with from the movie, Strangers on a Train will remind you how much you can lose as a person, and as a member of society. Thank goodness humanity got all this sorted out since then, right?

Highsmith, Patricia. Strangers on a Train. Penguin, 1950.

The best review for any book is when it makes you laugh out loud. This one delivers. Like David’s other audio books, The Land and Its People is a collection of recorded readings in front of live audiences.

One of the essays in this book published earlier in the New Yorker revealed that David and his longtime boyfriend Hugh Hamrick were secretly married in 2016. He didn’t even share this news with his family and revealed it was at his banker’s recommendation for financial reasons. Another essay features Hugh preparing for hip replacement surgery. With the upcoming Christmas holiday and David’s lack of culinary skills, how would Hugh be able to prepare his usual feast of two entrees and various side dishes to accommodate everyone’s dietary requirements?  Could Hugh cook from a wheelchair if he couldn’t recover fast enough?

As a Sedaris fan I have added listening to David’s Santaland Diaries, broadcast every Christmas on NPR, to my holiday traditions. I’ve also been fortunate enough to see David read his essays in person a couple of times and the crowd is an inimitable community. The last time I saw him, my seat mate said I looked familiar. After a few unsuccessful guesses at our connection, she said, “just give me your phone” so we could become Facebook friends, and then it all became clear.

What I love most about David are his conversations with people, real or imagined. He sometimes mirrors my own thoughts and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. David and Hugh’s rants and reactions to missed flights or a friend whose house rules don’t allow cell phone use on the first floor are hilarious. Our shared humanity is easier to laugh at when it happens to someone else. If you’d like to sample something by Sedaris, click here for several free essays and short stories. The world might need another Sedarian.  

The Land and Its People: Essays by David Sedaris, 2026, Little, Brown & Company

Commonly listed among suggested readings for America250, David McCullough’s 1776 is a history of the American Revolution focused on the pivotal year identified in the book’s title – the year of the Declaration of Independence, when the outcome of the struggle depended largely on military success. While the book is a military history, it is also a study of leadership, perseverance, devotion, and commitment to the cause of independence.

McCullough’s research draws upon both American and British archival sources. Letters, journals, and other contemporary records tell the human story through the experiences and observations of participants on both sides of the conflict. On the American side were farmers, teachers, laborers, and others, young and old alike, drawn into the struggle for independence.

1776 recounts the many hardships and missteps that preceded the Revolution’s eventual success. In late 1775, Britain prepared to crush the rebellion by sending additional troops, including well-trained and experienced Hessian mercenaries. At the same time, George Washington assumed command of the Continental Army, inheriting a force that was ill-equipped and largely unprepared.

Central to the book’s narrative is the leadership of George Washington. Much of what is commonly remembered about Washington involves his heroism and military accomplishments. McCullough does not portray him as flawless. Washington began his command with limited military experience, occasional uncertainty, and some notable mistakes. McCullough emphasizes his dignity, intelligence, perseverance, and ability to inspire confidence in others.

American soldiers faced significant disadvantages compared with the well-supported and formidable British military. The hardships were severe with hunger, disease, expiring enlistments, and frequent desertions. Critical supplies were lacking, clothing and food were often inadequate, training was inconsistent, and pay was unreliable. Morale was a persistent challenge.

Despite these overwhelming obstacles, and despite major defeats in New York and New Jersey, Washington’s army endured. Through determination, adaptability, and several important successes, the revolutionary forces continued the fight that would ultimately lead to British defeat. As McCullough observes, the Revolution survived because Washington refused to surrender.

Although Washington is the dominant figure, McCullough also profiles others who performed significant roles in the fight for independence, as well as key leaders among the British forces. Notable are Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene, whose intelligence, determination, and leadership McCullough’s recognizes. Their contributions, along with those of many other participants, reinforce one of the book’s central themes: that the Revolution’s success depended not only on great leaders but also on the perseverance and sacrifice of many individuals committed to the cause of independence.

Other notable David McCullough American history books for America250 reading and bookdiscussions include John Adams, The American Spirit, and The Pioneers.

McCullough, David. 1776. Simon & Schuster. 2005.

Visitors to the Louvre often have very polarizing impressions. Some immediately fall in love, and treasure the experience. Others feel rushed. Overwhelmed by the crowds and expansive collection, visitors may leave disappointed. In Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum, Elaine Sciolino explores the Louvre’s more than 200-year history, and dives into the stories of the art, the caretakers, and the complex issues surrounding this massive museum collection. As an experienced journalist, Sciolino knows how to find and tell compelling stories, uncovering intriguing and personal stories from the people who have unrivaled behind-the-scenes access, including curators, gardeners, window washers, and firefighters. Sciolino also delves into topics the Louvre and many museums face, including ethical questions surrounding ownership, acquisition, and representation. A delightful and thought-provoking read for museum lovers, even stanch Louvre detractors will likely find interest in learning more about its history and the complex issues facing the Louvre today.

Sciolino takes readers behind-the-scenes to reveal the inner workings of this massive institution, and the people that run it. Did you know that the Louvre has a particle accelerator used to identify the composition and provenance of artwork? Have you ever thought about how they clean the glass in the Louvre Pyramid? Spoiler: it involves a Swiss robot named Gecko. These are interesting stories on their own, but the interviews with museum workers are particularly moving. Window cleaners or members of the fire brigade may not have started their careers with a love of art, but they thoughtfully describe the personal connections they have made through their work.

“Even if you don’t really know the sculptures and paintings, you are carried away by the architecture itself. Like you are alone in the world, traveling through these huge rooms. It’s really this feeling of being really small in an absolutely immense world.”

The most meaningful moments many museum workers describe take place in quiet contemplation. Due to the museum’s popularity, the average person visiting the Louvre fights crowds instead of finding contemplative spaces. Sciolino explores the challenges visitors face when viewing the Mona Lisa. One curator put it this way: “She is made for contemplation. For dialogue. To appreciate her, you must be alone with her. To look at her face to face as I look at you. . . We can’t see her because she is hung way too high and way too far away. . . Sad to say, but for reasons of security and climate control, we have to keep her that way. There is also her coloring, she is bathed in muted tones and unrestored, and must co-exist with the bright-colored, restored finishing paintings that hang nearby. . . Finally, there is the long wait. It takes a long time to approach her. . . and then you see her, very small and in the distance, and you never really see her well, and so she may seem trivial.”

So how can museums like the Louvre create any meaningful experiences for visitors if they are the victim of their own success? Due to politics and the resistance to change, the Mona Lisa experience is unlikely to change anytime soon, but Sciolino explores a little-known way that visitors can see original artwork from storage up close and personal. She also looks at how the Louvre’s branch museum in Lens is doing things differently to engage its local audience in a former coal mining region. Outreach and creating community spaces are major parts of their mission.  But then there is also the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a museum created through a thirty-year licensing agreement and partnership between France and the UAE. Sciolino explores the museum’s successes and controversies, and examines accessibility issues for the UAE’s large population of immigrant workers.

The book also explores many ethical challenges the museum faces including representation, ownership controversies, and acquisition issues. The Louvre, for example, possesses fragments of the Parthenon and looted sites from other countries. Other chapters explore gender, race, and religion. Sciolino discusses where representation is lacking, and ponders that if excellence in our world today means that you engage your audience, “Who is the Louvre for? How have ethnic groups like people of color been excluded and what steps are being taken to include them? How can the museum be a place of empathy? Of emotional connections?”

These are just a few of the topics explored in this expansive look at the Louvre. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it as an audiobook, but Adventures in the Louve is also available as an eBook in Nebraska Overdrive.

Elaine Sciolino has had a long career as a journalist, and is a contributing writer for The New York Times. She joined the Times in 1984, where she has held positions including chief diplomatic correspondent, United Nations’ bureau chief, CIA correspondent, and Paris bureau chief.  She is also the author of The Seine: The River That Made Paris and The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs.

Adventures at the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum,by Elaine Sciolino, 2026, W.W. Norton & Company.

Earlier this month, Dermot Kennedy (a new-to-me artist whose music I’ve been enjoying) released an album called The Weight of the Woods. I’ve had the titular song and its reprise on repeat quite a few times since then.  

If I should fall down / under stars I can’t call out / get me back to my homeground / let me add to the weight of the woods // Tether my bones tight / in view of that coastline / and bury this soul of mine / give it back to the weight of the woods.  

An ever-increasing amount of years ago, like all good English Literature students, I was assigned to read Walden; or, a Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau as part of my American Literature studies. Something in those pages caught to the quick of me. And it wasn’t just the cabin he built for 28 (19^th century) dollars. Home ownership! Imagine! (Though he did not own the land).  

Anyways, “The Weight of the Woods” reminded me of Walden, as did the advent of spring, as did the itch of having no dirt under my fingernails. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” indeed.  

I would imagine (or would like to believe, or even hope) that nearly every educated person  recognizes the name Walden and understands, at least in broad strokes, the themes associated with it: nature, simplicity, contemplation, and living deliberately. Most ought to recognize the iconic, oft-quoted line, oft-plastered-on-outdoor-outlet-store-walls, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”  (Chapter 2: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For).  

Walden is, however, to my reading, more than a rote lesson. In fact, I think Thoreau himself would be remiss if his work was used as blueprint or gospel;  

I suspect that it is not purely an interest in diversity of life and observation that guides Thoreau to this conclusion, but rather a self-preserved reflex of we surely cannot all live in the woods and crowd that space — he remarks in Chapter 6, Visitors, that “These are the folks that worry the man / That lives in the house that I built. I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I feared the men-harriers rather.” The use of the word “worry” in this instance refers to its meaning of “irritate.” This vexation is primarily caused by the “self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of all” and not the “honest pilgrims, who came out to the woods for freedom’s sake.”  

But the cut of what Thoreau cautions against is living a life uncontemplated, of following in another’s path just because the way already-tread is always easier than the uncharted path. Life is about simplicity, not ease; though Walden argues that simplicity eases the toils required to live. Don’t go off to live in the woods because you can’t think of anything else you’d rather do – go off to live in the woods because you think that there is nothing else that you can do, no other way that you can live. It’s true that Thoreau’s Walden experience only lasted a little over two years. It’s true that he was not the first or only to live in those Walden woods. But he did it, didn’t he?  

During my first reading of Walden — more than a decade ago now — my favorite chapter was Chapter 9: The Ponds. I was struck by Thoreau’s description of the pond. How could one not fall in love with such a place? It seems perfection; it seems ideal; it seems heavenly – ah, but Thoreau chides, “Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth.”  

During this reading, it was Chapter 7: The Bean-Field that was dearest to me. There is something worthwhile and necessary in the soil, something worthwhile and necessary in the work of one’s hands, something necessary and worthwhile in birdsong and the woodchuck and the weeds. And how true it still rings today that, “ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely.” 

Anyways, let me add to the weight of the woods and the beanfield – let me add some measure of my soul back to the work that I do, deliberately, turning the good earth in my hands wherever I can. 

Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown is a pretty amazing book, and it is narratively different than anything I’ve read before. Frequently described as satire or metafiction, much of it is formatted to resemble a screenplay, with scene headings, character cues, and dialogue blocks. Additional narration, which expands beyond what would typically be included in a screenplay, is presented from the rarely-used second person point of view (think “you” pronouns).

Interior Chinatown’s main character, Willis Wu, is a young Chinese-American man who lives in Chinatown. He works as an extra (Background Oriental Male) in various movies and TV shows filmed on location, and he occasionally gets small speaking parts (Generic Asian Man). His aspiration, however, is to work his way up to the top slot in the hierarch: Kung Fu Guy.

Because of how this book is written, it’s often hard to tell whether actions are taking place on set or in real life. Willis and his neighbors, who are also cast in bit parts, share whispered commentary in the midst of scripted dialogue. And more significantly, dialogue between Willis and the stars of Black and White—the TV cop show they are currently filming—sometimes devolves into overt sniping about roles, stereotypes, and complicity with the system.

Text, subtext, and action blur. But the confusion serves a purpose. It opens up space for readers to interrogate the ways cultural tropes affect individuals—limiting how others see them as well as how they see themselves. It reminds us that everything is real life—even cliched cop shows.

This chaos is especially evident in the penultimate chapter: “Act VI: The Case of the Missing Asian.” Written as a courtroom scene, Willis is the defendant accused of “an internalized sense of inferiority.” According to testimony provided by Miles Turner, the Black detective from Black and White, “[Willis] thinks he can’t participate in this race dialogue, because Asians haven’t been persecuted as much as Black people.”

The trial is a wild ride. It provides Willis’s lawyer, Older Brother, whose recent absence from Chinatown is treated as a suspicious plot point in the latest Black and White episode but in reality is a function of his leaving to attend law school, an opportunity to share real case law pertaining to the historical treatment of minorities in the United States. It leads to Willis finally understanding that Kung Fu Guy is just another form of Generic Asian Man. And ironically, despite the main character’s epiphany, it ends in a giant Kung Fu battle—Wu and Older Brother vs. waves of cops—culminating in the freeing death of Kung Fu Guy

While Interior Chinatown’s plot is often bitingly funny, it never treats its subject matter lightly. That’s the brilliance of Yu’s work. It doesn’t offers easy answers, but it provides a crystal clear depiction of the dilemma confronting all of us: how to break free of the limiting roles and racial characterizations we’re steeped in.

Interior Chinatown was awarded the National Book Award in Fiction in 2020. It’s also been turned into a 10-episode miniseries available to stream on Hulu.

Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown: A Novel. New York: Vintage Books, 2020.