When he is called in to have his own machine serviced, Yu visits his mother who is stuck in a time loop in which she continually replays an hour of her life. As such, he sails solo through the universe, interacting with a jocular supervisor named Phil, who is actually a computer program his onboard computer named TAMMY and an imaginary dog named Ed. The book’s narrator - yes, he is Charles Yu - fixes time machines for a living.
In other words, prepare to do some time traveling with Yu inside a closet-sized capsule called the TM-31 Recreational Time Travel Device. And it, too, goes back and forth between the real world and other dimensions - not to a fictional world but to past and future versions of reality. “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe” was published 10 years earlier in 2010. My review: ‘Interior Chinatown’: A sparkling novel with humor and heartbreak
#CHARLES YU TM 31 TV#
The screenplay format meant Yu kept going from the real world to the fictional world, flipping back and forth between characters who lived in a Chinatown apartment building and who, like Willis, also chased their Hollywood dreams in the TV show and other productions.
In it, Yu used the screenplay format to tell the tale of Willis Wu, a “Generic Asian Man” who is stuck playing the stereotypical roles of “Background Oriental Male” and occasionally “Delivery Guy” in a fictional police procedural TV show, but who longs to be known worldwide as “Kung Fu Guy.” You see, when the year began, I picked up Yu’s second novel, “Interior Chinatown” (2020), and I was totally enthralled.
I had some idea of what I was getting into, but not entirely. Sure enough, I found myself alternately entertained, confused, amused and just plain blown away by Yu’s creative mind and precise prose. When I read those those sentences in the opening pages of Charles Yu’s debut novel, “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” I knew I was in for a mind-bending experience. What else am I supposed to do? I kill him. He steps out of a time machine, introduces himself as Charles Yu.
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