"Like Jane Austen, she shows us layers of society through magnificently drawn characters in situations that fascinate and enlighten"
– Elaine Petrocelli, Book Passage
News & Media
Personal | August 18, 2008
Food & Wine
I was fortunate enough to eat at the sublime Ryugin restaurant in Tokyo, and my essay of the delicious experience appears in the September issue of FOOD & WINE.
“Six days a week, my parents sold Mexican silver earrings to street peddlers for $1.50 at their cramped wholesale jewelry store in Manhattan. Every night, my mother rushed home to Queens to fix delicious Korean suppers from the meat and produce on sale at the Elmhurst Key Food supermarket. Then, in 1981, about five years after we immigrated, my father decided that knowing how to butter bread properly should be as much a part of his children’s education as algebra and spelling. He allowed me, a precocious 12-year-old, to select one fancy restaurant to study each year. On the appointed day, the Lee family would waltz into the likes of Lutèce or Le Cirque.”
For more, the link follows: Food & Wine Magazine
Reviews & Comments | July 02, 2008
Newsweek Interview with Charlene Dy
I wasn’t able to post this earlier. Here’s an excerpt:
Newsweek: But there was so much adultery in the book! Everyone was sleeping around and breaking up with each other. It’s sort of a dim view of love.
Min Jin Lee: Love is an absolutely tantalizing, beautiful thing. And yet, it is profoundly disappointing, too. I think adultery is a wonderful metaphor of betrayal. Sex is this intimate act between two people. In its highest form, we believe that it’s to be held sacred between two people who love each other. And that’s the reason why adultery always wounds us so much. But, if you take that as a metaphor, you can have adultery in friendship, you can have adultery in any intimate relationship.
Read “Forget the Comparisons, She’s Unique” at Newsweek
Interviews | July 02, 2008
“Forget the Comparisons, She’s Unique” - Newsweek
From the interview:
Newsweek: But there was so much adultery in the book! Everyone was sleeping around and breaking up with each other. It’s sort of a dim view of love.
Min Jin Lee: Love is an absolutely tantalizing, beautiful thing. And yet, it is profoundly disappointing, too. I think adultery is a wonderful metaphor of betrayal. Sex is this intimate act between two people. In its highest form, we believe that it’s to be held sacred between two people who love each other. And that’s the reason why adultery always wounds us so much. But, if you take that as a metaphor, you can have adultery in friendship, you can have adultery in any intimate relationship.
Link » Newsweek
News | June 26, 2008
TATLER, July 2008
“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 (Ireland) 2008
(Review of FFFM for the UK paperback -Hutchinson-Random House)
News | June 19, 2008
I’m a Fan
This was sent to me today, and I found it so fun that I thought I’d share it.
Copies of the UK paperback are sold at the newsstand at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong. Now, I’ve never been to Hong Kong, but I thought it was good that the book is resting in such fancy digs.
M.J.L.
News | June 02, 2008
The Hamburger and Malaysia
A few days ago, I reviewed a terrific book by Josh Ozersky called The Hamburger (Yale University Press) for The Times (London).
Unexpected and fun news:
In May, Free Food For Millionaires was No. 8 on the Fiction Bestseller list in Malaysia.
I hope your summer is terrific.
M.J.L.
Video | May 05, 2008
Min Jin Lee at the Asia Society
The Author of "Free Food for Millionaires" talks to Helen KohLink » Asia Society Video
Reviews | May 04, 2008
New York Times Paperback Row
“This accomplished first novel, the coming-of-age story of a Princeton-educated Korean-American woman making her way in New York City in the 1990s, recalls the Victorian novels its heroine devours. Our reviewer, Liesl Schillinger, described it as ‘packed with tales of flouted parental expectations, fluctuating female friendships and rivalries, ... romantic hopes and losses, and high-stakes career gambles.’”
Link » New York Times
Reviews | April 27, 2008
Bay Area Authors’ Books Among Best of ‘07
The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes (Crown) by Tess Uriza Holthe; Free Food for Millionaires (Warner) by Min Jin Lee; The Gathering (Black Cat/Grove) by Anne ...
– San Francisco Chronicle
Reviews | April 27, 2008
Psychiatric Services, A Journal of the American Psychiatric Association
In her first novel, Free Food for Millionaires, Min Jin Lee largely succeeds in unraveling the story of postcollege, Korean immigrant Casey Han, who is still challenged by her family traditions while striving for acceptance and personal fulfillment in the largely assimilated world of New York high finance. As the main character’s life unfolds, Lee masterfully reveals the fallible interpersonal relationships that define Han’s struggle. She also manages to tell the story from multiple perspectives, allowing the characters richness and authenticity that is often missing in the single point of view.
Link » Psychiatric Services, A Journal of the American Psychiatric Association
Interviews | April 27, 2008
New York Daily News
A first novel tells a sexy story of young Korean…
– New York Daily News
Reviews | April 27, 2008
Entertainment Weekly
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.
Link » Entertainment Weekly
- © 2012 Min Jin Lee
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