Olivia: Everyone says to follow your passion. But what if your passion leaves you broke, ashamed, and hiding from your friends? Today, we're exploring a novel that argues the American Dream isn't a straight line to success, but a brutal, messy collision of class, culture, and ambition. Jackson: That sounds a lot more like real life. The sanitized 'hustle and win' narrative gets old. I'm ready for the messy version. Olivia: That collision is the heart of Min Jin Lee's debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires. Jackson: Min Jin Lee, the author of the mega-hit Pachinko, right? I know this was her first novel, and I heard it took her over a decade to write. Is that true? Olivia: It is. An eleven-year apprenticeship, as she calls it, while battling chronic illness and financial hardship. Her own story is as epic as the one she wrote, and we'll definitely get into that. It’s that deep, personal experience that makes this book so raw and real. Jackson: Wow. Okay, so this isn't just fiction; it's forged in fire. Olivia: Absolutely. And to understand it, let's start with that incredible title, Free Food for Millionaires. What does that even bring to mind for you? Jackson: It sounds like a joke. Or a critique. Like, the people who need it the least are the ones getting all the perks. It feels deeply cynical and, honestly, very New York.

Olivia: You've nailed the cynicism. The title actually comes from a real anecdote the author heard. A friend who worked in investment banking told her that after a big deal, the bank would bring in free food, like lavish dim sum. And the wealthiest employees, the managing directors, were always the first in line, grabbing more than their share. Jackson: Of course they were. That is a perfect, infuriating image of the world. The hunger for more, even when you have everything. Olivia: Exactly. And that hunger, that paradox, is the engine of our protagonist, Casey Han. She's the brilliant, quirky, and deeply flawed daughter of Korean immigrants in Queens. She graduates from Princeton with an economics degree, ready to conquer the world, but the novel opens with her returning home with no job. Jackson: Ah, the classic post-grad nightmare. The world is your oyster, but you can't afford the shucking knife. Olivia: It’s worse than that. Her father, a traditional, hardworking immigrant, is furious. He sees her lack of a job as a failure, a waste of his sacrifice. They have a massive, explosive argument that actually turns violent, and he throws her out of the house. Jackson: Whoa, that escalated quickly. So in the first few chapters, she's jobless and homeless. Olivia: Jobless, homeless, and it gets worse. She flees to her boyfriend Jay's apartment, only to walk in on him with two other women. So in the span of a few hours, she's lost her family, her home, and her relationship. She is completely adrift. Jackson: Okay, that is a rock-bottom scenario. What does she do? Call a friend? Go to a shelter? Olivia: She checks into a luxury hotel, gets a new credit card, and goes on a shopping spree for expensive clothes she absolutely cannot afford. Jackson: Hold on. She's homeless and broke, and her first move is a shopping spree? That's the definition of financial insanity. It’s hard to feel bad for her in that moment. Olivia: I get that, and it's a reaction many readers have. Some find Casey really unlikable for this. But it’s not about the clothes; it's a desperate act of asserting her identity. She's refusing to be a victim. In her mind, she's earned the right to this life through her Princeton education. She's trying to wear the identity of the person she believes she is, even if her bank account says otherwise. Jackson: It’s like the ultimate Instagram-era performance. Projecting a life you don't have. But in the 90s, and with much higher stakes. You’re faking it till you make it, but with a credit card that has a very real, very high limit. Olivia: Precisely. And Min Jin Lee herself talks about this gap. Casey is what you might call 'class immiscible.' She has the cultural capital of the elite—the education, the language, the mannerisms—but she lacks the financial capital. She can talk the talk, but she can't pay the bill. She's trapped between her working-class Queens background and the glittering Manhattan world she craves. Jackson: That makes sense. But how does her Korean-American background make this different from any other ambitious grad in New York? Olivia: That’s the crucial layer. The author chose her name, Casey Han, very deliberately. 'Casey' was the name of a young Korean-American woman who died on 9/11, whose obituary Lee read. And 'Han' is a Korean word that's hard to translate. It’s this uniquely Korean sentiment of collective suffering, of inexpressible anguish and resilience forged from a history of loss and humiliation. Jackson: So it’s baked into her name. This sense of carrying a historical weight. Olivia: Yes. There's the pressure from her parents, who sacrificed everything for her success, and then there's this deeper, cultural 'han' that fuels her ambition. It’s not just a desire to be rich; it’s a desperate need to overcome a legacy of struggle, to prove that all the suffering was worth it. That’s a heavy burden for a 22-year-old to carry. Jackson: No kidding. It reframes that shopping spree. It’s still a terrible financial decision, but it’s also a rebellion against the expectation that she should just quietly suffer. Olivia: Exactly. She’s fighting for her own definition of a life, even if her methods are self-destructive. And that fight, that cost of ambition, is something the author knows intimately.

Olivia: This pressure to succeed, to prove your worth, isn't just in the fiction. It's deeply embedded in the story of the story. Which brings us to the book's epigraph from James Baldwin, which is just stunning. It reads: "Our crowns have been bought and paid for—all we have to do is wear them." Jackson: "All we have to do is wear them." That sounds so simple, but it feels like the hardest part. It implies the struggle isn't to earn the crown, but to have the courage to put it on. Olivia: That's it. And Min Jin Lee's own journey to write this book was a grueling, eleven-year struggle to finally wear her own crown as a writer. It's a story that runs in perfect parallel to Casey's. Jackson: You mentioned she was a lawyer first? Olivia: Yes, she quit her corporate law career in 1995 because a chronic liver disease made the hours impossible. She decided to pursue her passion for writing, but it was anything but a smooth transition. She faced five years of constant rejections. She ran through her savings, couldn't afford childcare for her son, and then her family fell into catastrophic debt, which she and her husband had to take on. Jackson: That is an avalanche of hardship. Olivia: It gets more intense. She felt so much shame about her financial state and her perceived failure as a writer that she would make excuses to avoid having lunch with friends. She was writing a book called Free Food for Millionaires while she literally couldn't afford to eat out. Jackson: The irony is brutal. And on top of all that, she was sick. Olivia: Terribly sick. Her liver disease flared up, causing cirrhosis. She had to give herself daily injections of Interferon for months. The side effects were awful—her hair fell out, she was constantly sick. But through it all, she kept working on the manuscript. She said she felt compelled to finish the first draft. Jackson: That level of determination is almost unbelievable. Where does that come from? Olivia: It seems to come from this deep belief in the work. There's this one story she tells that I think is so revealing. She scraped together a thousand dollars to go to the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She felt totally out of place, surrounded by MFA grads with book deals. One day at lunch, a young woman with a fellowship loudly mocked the "housewives who had paid full freight" to be there, clearly targeting her. Jackson: Oh, that's just cruel. I would have crawled into a hole. Olivia: She was humiliated. But at the very end of the conference, the acclaimed author Alice McDermott, her instructor, nominated her story for an anthology. It didn't get picked, but that single act of validation from someone she respected gave her the hope to "keep trying." Jackson: Wow. So it was this tiny spark in the middle of all this darkness. Olivia: A tiny spark. And then, a miracle. A year after her brutal treatment, her doctors declared her "cured" of her chronic liver disease—a one-in-a-million outcome. She said that experience changed her, made her feel she couldn't be so afraid of judgment anymore. And in 2006, eleven years after she started, she sold the book. Jackson: That is an absolutely brutal journey. It makes you wonder, was it worth it? The book is critically acclaimed, but that cost is immense. Olivia: That's the core question of the novel itself. The final section of the book is titled 'Grace.' And the story suggests grace isn't something you're just given; it's what you find after you've endured the struggle. Lee found it through her recovery and finishing the book. And her character, Casey, finds it in a really unexpected way. Jackson: It's interesting that some readers find Casey unlikable or her focus on consumerism shallow. But hearing the author's own story, it feels like Lee is intentionally showing us the ugly, messy parts of that hunger for a 'crown.' Olivia: Exactly. It's not a sanitized success story. It's a critique of the very idea of success. After all her striving, Casey lands a coveted, high-paying job on Wall Street. She gets the thing she thought she wanted. But she's miserable. The world is just as shallow and transactional as the title implies. Jackson: So she wins the game and realizes she hates the prize. Olivia: Yes. And her moment of grace, her final act of 'wearing her crown,' is rejecting that job offer and leaving business school to pursue her real, unprofitable passion: making hats. It’s her finally choosing to wear her own crown, not the one society, or even her parents, offered her.

Jackson: So the book is a double-edged sword. It's a critique of a system that forces people into these desperate, ambitious corners, but it's also a story of incredible resilience, both for the character and the author. Olivia: Precisely. Free Food for Millionaires isn't just an immigrant story or a novel about class. It's a profound look at the architecture of the American Dream and its emotional cost. It suggests that our real 'wealth'—our crown, as Baldwin says—isn't about status or money. It's the self-worth we claim after we've been stripped of everything else. Jackson: It’s a powerful idea. That your true value is what's left when all the external markers are gone. It makes you question what 'free food' you might be scrambling for in your own life, and what it's really costing you. Olivia: A perfect question to leave our listeners with. What crown are you trying to wear, and is it truly yours? Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.