Free Food For Millionaires

Free Food For Millionaires is by Min Jin Lee, the author of Pachinko.  There’s a similarity between the two novels, in the way one character’s actions ripple out and affect others. Free Food For Millionaires is set amid Korean families in New York. Although this is almost an ensemble novel, following the lives and choices of a group of characters, Casey Han is at the center. A well-educated, first-generation Korean-American, she struggles to find the unwritten rules to advance her career and her life. This is a wonderfully conflicted character, with her reckless romantic pairings and her regular Bible-study, with strong self-discipline and an unstoppable shopping habit. 

There is a distinctly Korean style to this story, especially in the role of love and marriage, with the expected dream, for girls in Casey’s cohort, of an early wedding to a Korean man with a good job. Casey is pretty sure she doesn’t want that, but is less sure about what she does want. The story explores expectations between Korean-Americans, their traditional Korean parents, and American New Yorkers. The Korean church is a source of many connections and relationships throughout the novel, even as Casey outwardly rejects her family. But there’s also a universality to the way twentysomething Casey watches others and tries to decide who to emulate.