Interior Chinatown

Willis is an aspiring young actor. At five feet eleven inches, he’s tall for an Asian person. Like the rest of his family, he works part-time as an actor but is frustrated by the limited roles offered to people of Asian descent. Ever since he was a child, Willis has aspired to win the pinnacle role that all Asian actors covet: Kung Fu Guy. He’s practiced martial arts from boyhood and wants to follow in his father’s footsteps.

As Willis narrates the story for the reader, his perspective shifts between the role he plays on the TV show Black and White and his identity in the real world. The lines grow so blurry at times that Willis can’t separate the two, and neither can the reader. His narration is disjointed, sometimes reporting external facts and sometimes staging a scene in his own head. Either way, Willis is playing a role rather than forging an authentic identity. His slippery narration indicates the psychological malaise he suffers as a native-born citizen who can’t find his place in the story or in his homeland. Only after Willis meets Karen and becomes Phoebe’s father does he begin to consider casting himself in a better life role than the one that Hollywood and America have given him.