Min Jin Lee

I had met some briefly in college.

In my writing classes, I would meet, let's say, Calvin Trimley.

He would come visit.

But it wasn't like he was my friend or a family friend.

I didn't have that planet.

So I figured it couldn't be that hard to write a book.

And I look back at that young person now and whenever I have, I get thousands of letters from people saying they want to be writers.

And I realize, and I have great compassion for them because I remember being that innocent person.

You've said that when you quit being a lawyer, you thought, okay, I'm going to call myself a writer.

But the world said, no, you're not a writer unless you have a published book.

So despite the fact that you were writing every day, you'd go to places and people would say, you call yourself a writer?

Where's your book?

That must have been brutal.

Were those your lawyer friends saying that?

I think my lawyer friends, I met people in finance, people I went to college with, high school with, people in my neighborhood.

Whenever I would go to a party and I would just cry a lot privately in the bathroom.

Like I was like, oh, I came to this thing and people are asking what I'm doing.

And I would tell them I'm working on a book and they would say, well, can I buy your book?

Is it sold anywhere?

And there was no answer to this.