~ Free Food for Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee ~
The novel begins with 22 year old protagonist Casey Han, who has just graduated from Princeton, coming home to Queens, where her Korean immigrant family have always lived, for a family dinner. Her parents, Joseph and Leah, and younger sister Tina are also present, and even before dinner starts, Casey gets into an argument with her father that quickly sees her father throwing her out of the house. This is the only clichéd scene in this 560 page novel, and was probably regarded by the author as a springboard from which to write the rest of the novel: essentially the story of what Casey makes of her life, beginning from this point where she has no home, no money, and no job. What Casey does have however, is social capital by way of powerful and affluent friends, good qualification and excellent abilities as a student and salesperson, tremendous style and dress sense, a loving younger sister, a boyfriend, and a best friend, and a lot of self-belief, confidence, self-assurance, and a blistering game of golf. Stacked against that, is her pride, penchant for spending far more money than she has, getting into debt, and a developed tastes for the luxuries in life.
The novel depicts the Korean American community in a lot of loving detail. We see a hard working community, a very deeply Christian one too, who dedicate themselves to god, church, family, work, friends. Many (especially but not only) of the older generation retain Korean traditions and etiquette, as well as language. They are a close knit community, keen to help each other although always comparing themselves against one another, proud and diligent, largely conforming but not without individuality and quirks. It is also clear that material goods and finances are a big part of this community’s consideration, no less so than adherence to some traditions and respectful, modest behavior.
There is a good cast of characters here, well introduced, well handled, particularly considering this is a debut novel. There is a mix of (mostly white) American and Korean American characters, and to Min’s credit, she really does avoid stereotyping. Each character seems human and complex, some are more likeable than others, but there are no villains here. There are a few weaknesses of course, like Ella Shim, a good friend of Casey’s, who is portrayed as rather saintly, starting to merge with the portrayal of Leah Cho, Casey’s mother, who is also rather saintly in exactly the same ways. Some characters are better developed than others, and the female characters tend to have far more depth than the male ones, but still, for a debut novel, it is an admirable effort. The male characters are also given their background stories, but we always seem to be watching them from outside, as if we don’t entirely comprehend their motivations.
There are some wonderful stand out moments in cultural terms, such as when Casey’s family have the pre-wedding dinner with Tina’s fiancee’s family. Min makes careful distinction throughout the novel of each Korean character’s background, whether they come from a good family or not (such as a boojah family). Casey’s family, the Hans, who work in a dry cleaners, are not as well off as Chul’s family, the Baeks, who are all qualified professionals, and from the yangban class. Joseph Han was also originally from the yangban class but had fallen from that; while Leah’s family are from the ssangnom class, poor people from the country. Leah had spent six or seven thousand dollars on gifts for the Baek family, while Casey calculates the Baeks spent about five hundred dollars on gifts from Macys. It is a painful exchange, and all the politenesses do not mask the insult and class disparities.
The novel moves very swiftly in time and in events, keeping up a good pace. It is a charming story, which works very hard at entertaining the reader, unsurprisingly, given the prologue where the author explains how she spent 10 years working on learning to write a novel, taken classes, writing many drafts, etc. The prologue actually sets the tone of the novel – it is a carefully structure novel, one which has been thought through and worked on with great care and attention to detail, and it is the opposite of whimsical and capricious. It is a very reliable, hardworking novel, which succeeds well in being a sound good read, with many lovely insights into the Korean American diaspora.
I look very forward to reading Pachinko, Min’s other novel, published 10 years after her first.
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