"INTERIOR CHINATOWN" WINS THE ROOSTER.

Click on the rooster to see the final results.

"Interior Chinatown" by Charles Yu has defeated "Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennet to be declared the winner of the 2021 Tournament of Books.

Whilst I did read and enjoy "Interior Chinatown", it was far from my favorites of the tournament. I would have loved to have seen "Piranesi" by Susanna Clarke win, and I think "Deacon King Kong" by James McBride would have made a very deserving winner.

However that is the beauty of the tournament, with so many judges, and books coming back as zombies, anything could happen and normally does. Congratulations to Charles Yu for taking home the rooster this year.

Here is a synopsis for "Interior Chinatown".

Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: he's merely Generic Asian Man. Every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here too. . . but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the highest aspiration he can imagine for a Chinatown denizen. Or is it?

After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he's ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family, and what that means for him, in today's America.

Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu's most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.