Some of the most influential and beloved novels of the last few years have been about money, finance, and the global economy. Some overtly so, others more subtly. It got to the point where we just had to call up the authors to find out more: What brought them into this world? What did they learn? How were they thinking about economics when they wrote these beautiful books? Today on the show: we get to the bottom of it. We talk to three bestselling contemporary novelists — Min Jin Lee (Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires), Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility), and Hernan Diaz (Trust, In the Distance) – about how the hidden forces of economics and money have shaped their works. This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Molly Messick, and engineered by Neisha Heinis. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts. Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter. Music: Universal Music Production - "This Summer," "Music Keeps Me Dancing," "Rain," and "All The Time." Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This is planet money from NPR.
You know that saying, never meet your idols?
I recently got to test out that theory, and I'm happy to report that whoever says that, they're wrong.
My name is Min Jin Lee, and I'm an author.
I write books.
Min Jin Lee is a pretty big deal in the fiction world.
Her most famous book, Pachinko, came out in 2017 and is now a show on Apple TV.
And are they about economics, your books?
They are.
They are about economics, because even though I write novels, I wanted to be an economist.
I don't think most people know this.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
So I go to college, and I think I'm going to be an economist.
And then, of course, I take economics.
I took macro, which was a mistake, of course.
Yeah.
And everything was guns and butter, and my brain just sort of melted guns and butter.
Thats macroeconomic shorthand for all the stuff a government might choose to spend money on.
So guns, thats like national defense versus the butter of social programs.