nwasianweekly.com
July 21, 2007

Free Food for Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee. Published by Warner Books, 2007.

Weighing in at a mammoth 560 pages, Min Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires is that rare gem: a 19th century-style novel that depicts a cross-section of Korean American society in all its sprawling complexity.

At the heart of the novel is Casey Han, a chain-smoking Princeton graduate who gets kicked out of the house for arguing with her father, a stern Confucian who wants Casey to be a lawyer. Casey, predictably, despises lawyers but finds herself at a loss when asked about her future. Outwardly she wants to please her parents with good grades, an Ivy League pedigree and a job on Wall Street, but inside she’s torn by a fierce desire to carve out a niche that doesn’t quite fit the typical immigrant success story.

Casey believes, in grandiose American fashion, that all “superior things — all things worth knowing, possessing, creating and admiring — (begin) with vast impractical wishes.” She, however, can’t accept that an impoverished lifestyle is a necessary corollary to following one’s bliss, at least in the early stages. In the course of a year, she hobnobs with the rich and purchases designer clothes she can’t afford, maxing out several credit cards while working as a low-paid assistant at an elite banking firm. She also admits to her endearing but gambling-addicted boyfriend that she cheated on him, leading to her near undoing at the novel’s finale.

Though the characters and subject matter might appear off-putting to some, the novel succeeds largely on Lee’s exceptional writing talent. Her commanding use of omniscient voice testifies to her skills as an author. A technique uniformly feared by first-time novelists, omniscient voice, when used effectively, not only exposes each character’s viewpoint but also makes readers feel truly inside the world of the novel in a way that no other perspective can.

In addition to her technical skill, Lee possesses all the other makings of a good novelist: an inherent grasp of conflict, microscopic attention to detail and a prose style capable of conveying vast shades of expression, from the sublimely philosophical to the outright profane, in a language that seems utterly contemporary. In Free Food for Millionaires, we also see the inklings of what separates the merely good novelist from the great: an unerring search for truth as the writer sees it, and the capacity to convey this truth in a signature language.

Granted, Lee is no genius like Balzac — her endings could use some work — but she is what we call a “born” novelist, with stories coursing through her veins much like they would in Bronte’s or Austen’s.

In its finely drawn character portrayals and panoramic depictions of immigrant life, Free Food for Millionaires represents a new type of fiction in Asian American literature. The book is basically a fresh immigrant take on the 19th century romance novel, complete with clandestine love affairs and insights into the human heart. The result is a tour de force that, as in a good magic show, not only dazzles us with its effects but also leaves us stupefied and wondering, “How on earth did she do that?”

Paul Kim can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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