advance praise...
"It would be remarkable if she had simply written a long novel that was as easy to devour as a 19th-century romance — packed with tales of flouted parental expectations, fluctuating female friendships and rivalries, ephemeral (and longer-lasting) romantic hopes and losses, and high-stakes career gambles. But Lee intensifies her drama by setting it against an unfamiliar backdrop: the tightly knit social world of Korean immigrants, whose children strive to blend into their American foreground without clashing with their distinctive background. It’s a feat of coordination and contrast that could kill a chameleon, but Lee pulls it off with conviction.” [read more]
– Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review
"Discussing the tenuous relationship between first generation immigrant parents and their hip young offspring, this debut novel is sympathetic without being saccharine and constitutes a fantastic portrait of intergenerational cultural friction.”
- TATLER
”...one keeps on reading to the very end, pulled along by the author’s confidence in her ambitious tale, and the saving grace of the complex Casey.”
– FINANCIAL TIMES MAGAZINE
Year End Lists:
“Top 10 Books of 2007” - USA TODAY
“Year’s Best Books” - NPR’s FRESH AIR
“Editor’s Fiction Favorites for 2007” - THE BLOOMSBURY REVIEW
“Best Recommended List” - Critical Mass, THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS’ CIRCLE
“Favorite Fiction of 2007” - CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“Favorite Books of the Year” - CHICAGO SUN TIMES
“Notable Books of 2007” - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“Auspicious Debut” 2007 BOOK SENSE PICK HIGHLIGHTS and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Best Novels of the Year” and “The Times Christmas Choice” - THE TIMES (London)
“Favorite Novels of 2007” - LARGEHEARTEDBOY.COM
"Min Jin Lee explores the most fundamental crisis of immigrants’ children: how to bridge a generation gap so wide it is measured in oceans...an insight into the secret world of Korean America.”
– THE OBSERVER (UK)
"With her first novel, FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES, Min Jin Lee has won the praise of literary critics...the book is a true page-turner, with a Korean-American protagonist and a compelling plot involving the universal clash of cultures, adultery and class distinction.”
– Jae-Ha Kim, CHICAGO SUN TIMES
"Assimilation. Independence. Love. Betrayal. Class. Race. Sex. It’s all in there. And reading FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES will, in the words of another writer to whom Lee has been compared, be a ‘far, far better thing’ than you’ve ever done.”
– Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR DAY TO DAY
"I read a terrific debut novel this week. It’s always heartening to find a good new writer, but what’s especially delightful about Min Jin Lee and her new novel, called FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES, is that she’s taken up the expansive form of the nineteenth century novel and its concerns about money, marriage, and duty, to create a kind of Korean-American riff on all those sagas, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, JANE EYRE, MIDDLEMARCH, where the principled heroine sometimes behaves like a downright fool.”
– Maureen Corrigan, NPR FRESH AIR
"This big, beguiling book has all the distinguishing marks of a Great American Novel: brilliant set-pieces (the golf club, the trading floor, the janitor’s room, the cosmetics counter); an outsider/insider point of view; and a complex, modern voice that seems to speak more clearly than most. Most importantly, Lee shows that the core values of this particular community are matched exactly in the mainstream culture. Traditions—fetishised because half-forgotten—of charity, gift-giving, churchgoing and family life are what hold both groups together. When they work they work like magic. But Lee is a realist and, as her novel demonstrates, men and women—wherever they come from—still have a lot to learn. Perhaps, this remarkable writer dares to wonder, they should try learning together?”
- Melissa Katsoulis, THE TIMES (LONDON)
"THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE”
"FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES was a joy from beginning to end, and I could not put it down. Beyond being merely an enjoyable read, I found the characters haunting in their realism. Normally, when I read a book about high finance in New York, the author tends to present a voyeuristic fantasy about what living the ‘high life’ in New York City should be. Lee has captured the real essence of the people that dominate this domain, showing their fears and their fantasies. From the investment banker haunted by his impoverished background to the ivy league graduate ashamed to go back to her reunion, Lee has finally showed the world that these are real people and not stereotypes. Her characters live, love, fight, fear and fail because they are, in the end, human beings.”
– Stuart Ellman, RRE VENTURES
"The smart, driven, quirky, fascinating child of Asian immigrants, Casey Han of FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES is Horatio Alger for the 21st century. Don’t look back—Casey is gaining on you.”
– Peter Petre, FORTUNE
”...Lee’s book is much more ambitious, complex, and layered than THE HOUSE OF MIRTH.”
– Michelle Lin, New York Brain Terrain
"A measure of Min Jin Lee’s remarkable talent is her ability to effortlessly capture the thoughts of a range of characters, old and young, immigrant and native, privileged and poor. The cheating husband, the desperate gambler, the domineering Korean father, the Puerto Rican doorman, the gynecologist delivering bad news, the licentious choir director: We are privy to all their points of view. At more than 550 pages, a novel is often labeled ambitious and sprawling. FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES is all that, and more. It is a pleasure to enter the world of this large cast of characters, to discover the ties that bind them, to witness the web of deceit that ensnares them, to watch them fall in and out of love, betray and forgive.”
– Mindy Friddle, CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
“Min Jin Lee’s debut novel FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES is masterful storytelling. She cleverly weaves complex relationships into a story about success, high fashion, competition, heartbreak and introspection.”
– Cherie Fisher, Readers Views
"The plot of FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES is reminiscent of Theodore Dreiser’s SISTER CARRIE...FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES is about the fine line between sacrifice and exploitation, and finding fulfillment in a dubious world. The characters wrestle with conflicting emotions inside their own souls and decide which one will lead them to happiness. Sometimes the path is long and winding, but in the end it’s worth every page.”
– Shannon Luders-Manuel, Book Reporter
“For me, hating to finish a book is the highest praise I can give it. The characters jump off the page and into my life, and I think about them in the night when I can’t sleep. What will Casey do now? Will Unu really be okay? Are Leah and Joseph going to finally accept Casey and let her be herself? Growing up is hard, even harder when you’re growing away from your family and culture. Everything turned out for the best in the end, I loved the book, and I’ll look forward to another by this author.”
– Rheta Van Winkle, BOOKLOONS
"This saga about class, society, identity, and survival from Min Jin Lee takes a look at a caste system defined by culture, education, economics, and just about every other position you can think of in 1990s America...This complex novel is told from every character’s point of view, whether it’s the arrogant cheating husband or the doorman of an Upper East Side apartment building. Sometimes too many characters can be confusing and distracting, but here it works—thus giving the book a rich flavor readers crave. Free Food for Millionaires is an amazing book about real life that I enjoyed thoroughly.”
– Maryann Butler, NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS
“Min Jin Lee, in her first novel, paints a vast New York landscape that brings to mind BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, updated 20 years...There is fantastic energy in this book about Casey’s search for her place. The jacket copy compares Lee with early Philip Roth, and I think it’s an interesting and apt comparison.”
– Carla Cohen, The Politics & Prose Book Review
“The beauty of Lee’s novel, however, is that it does not focus solely on Casey’s sojourn from naive pride to self-realization—as compelling as that is. Her subplots and supporting characters are complex and intriguing, and the story is told by an omniscient narrator so that the reader has insight into every character’s thoughts...Lee is particularly insightful in her examination of the distinction between sex and love and want and need.”
– M.L. Johnson, Associated Press
“FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES is different from any book I’ve ever read—a big, juicy, commercial Korean American coming-of-age novel, one that could spawn a satisfying miniseries, and one that definitely belongs in this summer’s beach bag.”
– Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly
“...Free Food for Millionaires is not a novel to be entered into lightly, but the rewards are well worth the time. It’s not a day trip; it’s an immersion into a fully realized and beautifully written world.”
– Kristy Kiernan, BOOKPAGE
“Featuring subtly drawn characters and sensitive to the nuances of race and class, Free Food is a first-rate read—a book you finish feeling certain the lives inside will go on long after the final page. 3.5 stars”
– Thailan Pham, PEOPLE MAGAZINE
"Not since Jhumpa Lahiri’s THE NAMESAKE has an author so exquisitely evoked what it’s like to be an immigrant...As much as this is an immigrant story, it’s also an American story full of class struggle, rugged individualism, social status and above all, the money haves and have-nots. Most of all it’s an epic mediation on love, both familial and romantic. Lee offers us love in all its tenacious and painful glory.”
– Carol Memmott, USA TODAY
“ She has updated the hoary Victorian novel of progress to a postmodern, postfeminist world, and imagined a character whose particular circumstances feel universal.”
– Janice P. Nimura, Newsday
