Feb 2022 Book Choice

 Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu was our late winter book club choice.

Here is part of the NYT book club review 2020: 

“Interior Chinatown” posits that we are reading a teleplay about Chinatown — specifically the Golden Palace restaurant, which is the setting for a cop show called “Black and White.” Through his protagonist, Willis Wu — who has a small part on the show — Yu explores in devastating (and darkly hilarious) fashion Hollywood’s penchant for promoting clichés about Asians and Asian-Americans. Wu has worked his way from “Background Oriental Male” to “Dead Asian Man” to “Generic Asian Man Number Three/Delivery Guy” — a long way from “Kung Fu Guy,” which is where he wants to be.

Although the lacerating humor in “Interior Chinatown” never skips a beat, what makes the novel so compelling is its strong commitment to characterization, without which the pointed commentary would be less potent.  Early on, we are given a meticulous portrait of Wu’s father, Sifu, once “a young dragon” and martial arts expert but now an “Old Asian Man” who would “always be your Father, but somehow was no longer your dad.” An undercurrent of anger and sadness fuels these scenes. It’s not so much that Wu is passive but that the author is so good at integrating his character’s point of view into what would be, in lesser hands, little more than scene description.

February 2020 Book Choice

Moving into the year with a dynamic and moving selection by the one and and only Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon.

Kirkus Review
1977

And the scribbled no-name "Macon Dead," given to a newly freed black man by a drunken Union Army officer, has stained out a family's real name for three generations, and then we meet the third "Macon Dead," called "Milkman." Raised among the sour hatreds of the richest black family in a Michigan town, Milkman learns not to love or make commitments, learns to turn away from his father's hard, tight greed, his mother's unloved passivity, his sisters' sterile virginity. He stands apart from his outcast aunt Pilate (a figure reminiscent of Sula, living beyond all reason), a "raggedy bootlegger" who keeps her name in a box threaded to one ear. And he stands above the wild untidy adoration of his cousin Hagar, above the atrocities against blacks in the 1950s, even while his friend organizes a black execution squad. However, when Milkman's father opens the door to a family past of murder and flight, Milkman—in order to steal what he believes is gold—begins the cleansing Odyssean journey. His wanderings will take him through a wilderness of rich and wonderful landscapes murmuring with old tales, those real names becoming closer and more familiar. He beholds eerie appearances (an ancient Circe ringed with fight-eyed dogs)—and hears the electric singing of children, which holds within it the pulse of truth. Like other black Americans, Milkman's retrieval of identity from obliteration helps him to shake off the "Dead" no-name state of his forebears. And, like all people, his examination of the past gives him a perspective that liberates the capacity for love. Morrison's narration, accomplished with such patient delicacy, is both darkly tense and exuberant; fantastic events and symbolic embellishments simply extend and deepen the validity and grace of speech and character.

When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you die."

Molly hosted the dinner at her lovely home filled with friendship and deep conversation. 

February book choice and dinner

 Our February choice was Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth 

Here is a bit of what the NY Times had to say in their 2000 web post review 

A young novelist chronicles two families who bring a patchwork of cultures to the London of the 21st century.



Zadie Smith's debut novel is, like the London it portrays, a restless hybrid of voices, tones and textures. Hopscotching through several continents and 150 years of history, ''White Teeth'' encompasses a teeming family saga, a sly inquiry into race and identity and a tender-hearted satire on religious antagonism and cultural bemusement. One might be inclined to assume that Smith, who began writing the book when still a Cambridge undergraduate, has bitten off more than she can chew; one might even feel a little huffy that one so young (she is 24) has aimed so high. Is it open season on Henry James's baggy monster? Yet aside from a rather wobbly final quarter, Smith holds it all together with a raucous energy and confidence that couldn't be a fluke.





Alayna hosted the Beehive at her lovely cottage, great food and a lively discussion.