“Free Food For Millionaires” by Min Jin Lee

This was Lee’s first published novel. Like “Pachinko” it is at heart a story of an immigrant family trying to find a place in their new world. They struggle with straddling the line between their old and new cultures, trying to feel at home in both or even in either one. However, unlike Lee’s latest work, this novel has more of a soap opera tone. I do not mean that in a disparaging way. The story is not tragic, while still dealing with the harsh realities that all immigrant families face. This novel deals with the dramas of dating, clothes, and style, while also touching heavily on more weighty themes such as familial duty, fitting in, and racial mixing. The protagonist, Casey, is a Korean girl who just graduated from Princeton and grew up in Queens, the daughter of two dry cleaner workers. She is thoroughly Western in mindset, but her family tries to assert their own Eastern sensibilities on her as well. Her younger sister, Tina, a pre-med at MIT, has seemed to have figured out how to balance both worlds and, therefore, is viewed as the golden child in the family. Casey struggles through life, dating and dumping a white boyfriend, hooking up with coworkers at an investment bank, and eventually dating a Korean-American banker from Texas. Her work life is equally hectic, as she refuses to settle for what is expected of her. Throughout the story socioeconomic class comes up again and again as Casey interacts with Ivy League graduate bankers and friends from Princeton who went to Andover, Exeter, and Groton and who summer on Nantucket. Her best friend from college is on a seemingly endless tour of men through Italy as she continually postpones a graduate degree in art. Casey’s mentor is an older Korean lady, married to an Italian Jew, who runs her own boutique department store in Chelsea. She freely gives out lavish gifts and advice, but expects devotion in return. One anchor in every Korean immigrant community is the Church. But even within the congregation in Queens there is a divide between the doctors, accountants, and other professionals and the dry cleaners, shopkeepers, and bodega owners. Class again asserts itself. This is a tale of a girl growing up in New York, finding herself, and learning how to be true to her values, while coming to terms with her parents and traditions.