I’ve got a lovely hardcover copy of Min Jin Lee’s debut novel Free Food for Millionaires waiting for you. The book chronicles Korean-American Casey Han after she’s graduated from Princeton. Casey is the child of working-class parents in Queens but she’s surrounded by people who can carelessly summer in Italy. As in a 19th-century novel, many of these characters come alive, creating a shifting, expanding universe with Casey at its center. Carol Memmott writes in USA Today:
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.
To win the book, send an email to paperhaus (a) gmail.com and tell me about one of the richest people you’ve met. Please include your mailing address. The winner’s tale — if you like — will be posted here.
