Regarding Casey/Blueangel/9-11 (new book)

[sheendawg]

I was at Barnes and Noble the other day and came across this book. It is sooooo good and I highly recommend it. I did some more searching on the author and came across this interview - and how she chose the character's name. I remember the threads about Casey on here and felt compelled to post.

Q: How did you choose Casey Han's name?

A: I began this novel shortly after September 11, 2001. I live in dowtown New York, not ten blocks from the World Trade Center. As little as a week before the bombing, my then three year old son and I were at the Borders located on the ground floor of the World Trade Center buying Thomas the Tank Engine books. This was our neighborhood shopping center, and Sam and I regularly went there to get chocolate rolls from Ecce Panis or to eat ramen at the food court.

After the bombing, The New York Times published a series of brief obituaries with photographs of those who died. I could hardly read them, but now and then I tried. One day, I opened the section and saw a young Asian woman's face. Her first name was Casey. She was pretty with a beguiling expression - like someone you'd look forward to seeing at work. She had a Korean surname, and I'd never met a Korean with the given name Casey. I don't know anything about her except for what was on that brief obituary, but I named my character after this woman who died so close to where I live.

(the interview continues) www.minjinlee.com/author/about_min

Casey Han's four years at Princeton gave her many things, "But no job and a number of bad habits." Casey's parents, who live in Queens, are Korean immigrants working in a dry cleaner, desperately trying to hold on to their culture and their identity. Their daughter, on the other hand, has entered into rarified American society via scholarships. But after graduation, Casey sees the reality of having expensive habits without the means to sustain them. As she navigates Manhattan, we see her life and the lives around her, culminating in a portrait of New York City and its world of haves and have-nots. FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES offers up a fresh exploration of the complex layers we inhabit both in society and within ourselves. Inspired by 19th century novels such as Vanity Fair and Middlemarch, Min Jin Lee examines maintaining one's identity within changing communities in what is her remarkably assured debut.

Min Jin Lee will also be at the Asia Society this upcoming Tuesday for a talk and signing!

Read a VERY generous excerpt (the first 50 pages - I went back and bought it the next day cause I HAD to have it after reading that!!!!) here:

http://narrativemagazine.com/405/min.htm

[cotoncandydream]

Thank you for that......she was such a positive light. I remember all of us checking in on the boards that day making sure friends were ok. When DaVe had to lock her account it was a very hard moment. Back then were all so much tighter. R.I.P. our BlueAngel

[sheendawg]

I tell ya, I was stunned and then moved by the gesture. The book is so beautifully written too, I'm looking forward to spending most of the rainy evening with it.

I remember the last thread from September about her, it was nice to see that she touched so many people - even those that she didn't know.

RIP

[enviable1]

WOW..way cool...! Gonna check that book out