Product Description

"Competence can be a curse." So begins Min Jin Lee's epic novel about class, society, and identity. Casey Han's four years at Princeton have given her many things: "a refined diction, an enviable golf handicap, a popular white boyfriend, an agnostic's closeted passion for reading the Bible, and a magna cum laude degree in economics. But no job and a number of bad habits."
Casey's parents, who live in Queens, are Korean immigrants working in a dry cleaner, desperately trying to hold onto their culture and identity. Their daughter, on the other hand, has entered into the upper echelon of rarified American society via scholarships. But after graduation, Casey's trust-fund friends see only opportunity and choices while Casey sees the reality of having expensive habits without the means to sustain them. As Casey navigates Manhattan, we see her life and the lives of those around her: her sheltered mother, scarred father, her friend Ella who's always been the good Korean girl, Ella's ambitious Korean husband and his Caucasian mistress, Casey's white fiancé, and then her Korean boyfriend, all culminating in a portrait of New York City and its world of haves and have-nots.
FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES offers up a fresh exploration of the complex layers we inhabit both in society and within ourselves. Inspired by 19th century novels such as Vanity Fair and Middlemarch, Min Jin Lee examines maintaining identity within changing communities. This is a remarkably assured debut from a writer to watch.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #424498 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-09
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.00" w x 6.00" l, 1.36 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In her noteworthy debut, Lee filters through a lively postfeminist perspective a tale of first-generation immigrants stuck between stodgy parents and the hip new world. Lee's heroine, 22-year-old Casey Han, graduates magna cum laude in economics from Princeton with a taste for expensive clothes and an "enviable golf handicap," but hasn't found a "real" job yet, so her father kicks her out of his house. She heads to her white boyfriend's apartment only to find him in bed with two sorority girls. Next stop: running up her credit card at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. Casey's luck turns after a chance encounter with Ella Shim, an old acquaintance. Ella gives Casey a place to stay, while Ella's fiancé gets Casey a "low pay, high abuse" job at his investment firm and Ella's cousin Unu becomes Casey's new romance. Lee creates a large canvas, following Casey as she shifts between jobs, careers, friends, mentors and lovers; Ella and Ted as they hit a blazingly rocky patch; and Casey's mother, Leah, as she belatedly discovers her own talents and desires. Though a first-novel timidity sometimes weakens the narrative, Lee's take on contemporary intergenerational cultural friction is wide-ranging, sympathetic and well worth reading. (May)
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From AudioFile
When the listener learns that Korean-American Casey Han carries a copy of George Eliots MIDDLEMARCH around in her bag, it become clear that this is more than chick lit about a career girl in the big city. Suddenly, the jobs, clothes, and lifestyle Casey craves represent issues of class and assimilation. Shelly Frasiers adept reading of this thoughtful audiobook eloquently raises questions about American social strata much in the way Eliots work did in nineteenth-century England. Casey is a well-educated girl from a modest immigrant family who is constantly aware of the cultural differences that comprise her life. Frasier keeps Casey honest with her no-nonsense performance. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Lee mixes feminism and cultural awareness to create a sweeping story of first-generation Korean Americans finding their way between the old world and the new. Casey Han, her 22-year-old heroine, is having trouble turning her Princeton economics degree into a job. When her authoritarian father throws her out, she goes to her white boyfriend for solace only to find him with in bed with two sorority girls. Just as all looks lost, she meets a rich school acquaintance, Ella Shim, who offers her a place to stay and convinces her fiance to help Casey^B get a job. Casey's taste for expensive clothes keeps her in debt. Ella's shyness makes it easy for her husband to cheat on her. And Casey's father's coldness makes it hard for her mother to ignore kindness from another quarter. With very broad strokes and great detail, Lee paints colorful three-dimensional characters and outlines intergenerational and cultural struggles brilliantly. There is a little first-novel shyness on some issues but nothing the rest of the narrative doesn't make up for. Elizabeth Dickie
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