Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History

by Yunte Huang

Overview

Winner of the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Book
Shortlisted for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography
Named One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time

"An ingenious and absorbing book…It will permanently change the way we tell this troubled yet gripping story." —Jonathan Spence

Hailed as “irrepressibly spirited and entertaining” (Pico Iyer, Time) and “a fascinating cultural survey” (Paul Devlin, Daily Beast), this provocative first biography of Charlie Chan presents American history in a way that it has never been told before. Yunte Huang ingeniously traces Charlie Chan from his real beginnings as a bullwhip-wielding detective in territorial Hawaii to his reinvention as a literary sleuth and Hollywood film icon. Huang finally resurrects the “honorable detective” from the graveyard of detested postmodern symbols and reclaims him as the embodiment of America’s rich cultural diversity. The result is one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year and a “deeply personal . . . voyage into racial stereotyping and the humanizing force of story telling” (Donna Seaman, Los Angeles Times).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393079166
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/15/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Yunte Huang, a Guggenheim Fellow, has taught at Harvard and the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is a Distinguished Professor of English. The author of the Edgar Award–winning biography Charlie Chan and Inseparable, both NBCC finalists, Huang speaks frequently about American popular culture.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Introduction xv

Prologue 1

Part 1 The "Real" Charlie Chan

1 Sandalwood Mountains 7

2 Canton 22

3 Paniolo, the Hawaiian Cowboy 28

4 The Wilders of Waikiki 37

5 "Book 'em, Danno!" 44

6 Chinatown 54

7 The See Yup Man 61

8 Desperadoes 68

9 Double Murder 73

Part 2 Charlie Chan's Pop

10 The Other Canton 83

11 Lampoon 96

12 The Raconteur 102

13 The House Without a Key 108

Part 3 Charlie Chan, The Chinaman

14 The Heathen Chinee 117

15 Fu Manchu 136

16 Charlie Chan, the Chinaman 146

17 Kaimuki 161

18 Pasadena 171

19 A Meeting of East and West 181

Part 4 Charlie Chan at the Movies

20 Hollywood's Chinoiserie 189

21 Yellowface 198

22 Between the Real and the Reel 205

23 Rape in Paradise 211

24 The Black Camel 230

25 Racial Parables 238

Part 5 Charlie Chan Carries on

26 Charlie Chan in China 247

27 Charlie Chan Soldiers On 259

28 The Fu Manchurian Candidate 268

29 Will the Real Charlie Chan Please Stand Up? 278

Epilogue 289

Appendix I A List of Charlie Chanisms 299

Appendix II A List of Charlie Chan Films 302

Acknowledgments 305

Notes 307

Selected Bibliography 329

Index 337

What People are Saying About This

Jonathan Spence

"An ingenious and absorbing book, that provides a convincing new mode for examining the Chinese experience through both Chinese and Western eyes. It will permanently change the way we tell this troubled yet gripping story."—Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China and Return to Dragon Mountain

Editorial Reviews

…a capacious, somewhat baggy, but always entertaining book about Chan and all the factors that account for his longevity. Before Huang is done, we have been treated to a vast gaggle of material about Chan's creator, Earl Derr Biggers; Honolulu (where Chan was nominally a police detective); Chinese culture and immigration to the West; Hollywood moviemaking, not excluding Fu Manchu and Anna May Wong—everything that might possibly shed light on the Honorable Detective's life and times and popularity…Charlie Chan remains, in himself, a sly and delightful figure, worthy of nostalgia—and of Huang's very original, good-humored and passionately researched book.
—The New York Times

Richard Schickel

…almost as wide-ranging as it is enthralling…Yunte Huang's Charlie Chan is a terrifically enjoyable and informative book, one that should appeal to both students of racial history and to fans of one of cinema's greatest detectives.
—The Washington Post

Michael Dirda

"A great delight of Huang’s quirky, smart, and entertaining book is his sleuthing out the real story behind Charlie Chan.…Huang’s history is bracing and expansive."

The New Yorker - Jill Lepore

"An astute and engaging cultural history. Huang’s deeper point is indisputable. Charlie Chan is an entirely American creation and an entirely American story. To know him is to know ourselves."

New York Review of Books - Richard Bernstein

"That rarest of treats: a work of exhaustively researched popular history that reads like a dime-store romance."

Time - Pico Iyer

"A kind of quadruple biography of the characters who inspired, created, and popularized the fictional Chinese detective.…Huang’s enthusiasm for his characters lends the book a sense of exploratory excitement."

Harper’s - Benjamin Moser

"A loving look at a figure not loved by all."

San Francisco Chronicle - William Wong

"An involving, groundbreaking and far-reaching inquiry.…[A] scintillating, provocative work of discovery, a voyage into racial stereotyping and the humanizing force of storytelling…deeply personal."

Los Angeles Times - Donna Seaman

"You don’t need to be a fan of Charlie’s to enjoy Huang’s narrative, maybe because he’s told so many stories here, all of them intriguing."

Newsweek - Malcolm Jones

"[Charlie Chan] is an astute blend between biography and cultural criticism as Huang analyzes how Chan served as a crucial counterpoint to stereotypical Chinese villains in early Hollywood."

Esquire - Adam Morgan

"A heady mixture of scholarship, essay and memoir.…As wide-ranging as it is enthralling.…A terrifically enjoyable and informative book, one that should appeal to both students of racial history and to fans of one of cinema’s greatest detectives."

Michael Dirda

"Huang gives a full account of a life that was in many ways more interesting than the fictional version.…The most interesting story in Charlie Chan is Mr. Huang’s own."

New York Times - Charles McGrath

Writing easily without turgid academic cant, Huang, a former restaurateur, offers a tasty narrative menu.

San Francisco Chronicle

Charlie Chan remains, in himself, a sly and delightful figure, worthy of nostalgia—and of Huang’s very original, good-humored and passionately researched book.

Richard Schickel - The New York Times Book Review

One of the most entertaining, informative, and provocative books I have read in a long time.

David Thomson - New Republic

Huang’s history is bracing and expansive.

Jill Lepore - The New Yorker

A virtuoso of curiosity.... Huang digs up fascinating research on everything from the demographics of capital punishment in Honolulu to the origins of The Manchurian Candidate.... a work of exhaustively researched popular history that reads like a dime-store romance.”

Pico Iyer - Time

Provocative and totally unique, Charlie Chan expands the yellowface debate with mischievous humor and a compelling sense of irony. In bringing the actual Honolulu detective, Chang Apana and his distorted Hollywood reflections to vivid life, Yunte Huang opens up important historical perspectives that have gone previously unexamined.”

Jessica Hagedorn

Witty and erudite, Charlie Chan intrigues and surprises as it unravels the three guises of this American original—a real-life, Hawaiian-born Chinese detective, a literary creation, and a movie character. Racist stereotypes, we come to see in this exemplary work, can convey monstrous fictions as well as complex, multifaceted truths.”

Gary Y. Okihiro

[G]ripping .... Huang writes with rare personal intensity and capacious intelligence.

Stephen Greenblatt

Who would think that the back-story of the fictional character Charlie Chan could be so instructive, and so timely? Huang's deft and witty recounting of how Hollywood transformed a real life detective from Hawaii into one of the most recognizable—and problematic—racial icons in movie history tells us much that we need to know about America's engagement with race and identity in the 20th century. Race was clearly more than black and white, a thing to keep in mind as we move through our increasingly multi-cultural century.

Annette Gordon-Reed

Charlie Chan, much like the classic geisha dolls on bookcase shelves, has survived for generations as little more than a paper-thin stereotype. Now in this impressive and highly-original work, Yunte Huang has brought this fictional character out of the dusty shadows into three-dimensional life, offering us not only a picture of a little-known swath of American history, but the surprising story of this Chinese detective's American creator, and the real-life figure who inspired him.

Arthur Golden

The most interesting story may be Huang’s own. He comes to see Chan as 'both the racist heritage and the creative genius' of his adopted nation’s culture.

The Kansas City Star

[A] fascinating cultural survey full of engaging tangents.... one of Huang's greatest accomplishments is his vivid narration of the history of Chinese immigration to the United States.... In the style of say, Louis Menand, Huang is that rare literary scholar with the light touch of a popular historian.... Huang's book is perfectly timed for the era of YouTube and Netflix and so hopefully will reintroduce what was created, with all its wisdom and imperfection.

The Daily Beast

It's a story so engaging on so many levels that, as with any good detective book, you won't want to put it down.

Elinor Lange - The Oregonian

Excellent and very sympathetic...You don't need to be a fan of Charlie's to enjoy Huang's narrative, maybe because he's told so many stories here, all of them intriguing...All this—the lives of Biggers and Apana, Charlie’s career in novels, movies, TV shows, cartoons, and comic books—is told in the context of an America in the throes of nativism. Asian-Americans then were held in the same suspicion and contempt directed today at Arabs and Latinos, a fact that gives this story a lamentable but inescapable currency.

Sarah Ball - Newsweek

Starred Review. This is a beautifully written analysis of racism and an appreciation of Charlie Chan and Chang Apana, made credible by Huang's background.

Booklist

A significant work of American history written in a stimulating and masterful way. Most impressive is Yunte Huang’s ability to create a nuanced cultural and racial history out of the fictional Charlie Chan.

Peter Kwong

Charlie Chan remains, in himself, a sly and delightful figure, worthy of nostalgia—and of Huang’s very original, good-humored and passionately researched book.— Richard Schickel

The New York Times Book Review

It's a story so engaging on so many levels that, as with any good detective book, you won't want to put it down.— Elinor Lange

The Oregonian

Excellent and very sympathetic...You don't need to be a fan of Charlie's to enjoy Huang's narrative, maybe because he's told so many stories here, all of them intriguing...All this—the lives of Biggers and Apana, Charlie’s career in novels, movies, TV shows, cartoons, and comic books—is told in the context of an America in the throes of nativism. Asian-Americans then were held in the same suspicion and contempt directed today at Arabs and Latinos, a fact that gives this story a lamentable but inescapable currency.— Sarah Ball

Newsweek

A virtuoso of curiosity.... Huang digs up fascinating research on everything from the demographics of capital punishment in Honolulu to the origins of The Manchurian Candidate.... a work of exhaustively researched popular history that reads like a dime-store romance.— Pico Iyer

Time