Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan on new book Rich People Problems and upcoming Hollywood film
With final instalment of trilogy on the glittery, glamorous world of the East’s mega-rich published, Kwan drops in on set of Crazy Rich Asians movie – starring Henry Golding and Michelle Yeoh – and says it is ‘making history’
Rich People Problems, Kwan’s latest novel published last week, opens with the tycoon Alfred Shang ordering the aviation authorities to turn around a commercial jet mid-air. The matron of their family, Su Yi, has had a heart attack, and their private doctor had the audacity to try to fly off unknowingly to Australia.
Shang doesn’t mind inconveniencing 400 passengers and dumping a quarter of a million litres of jet fuel so the physician can be forcibly dragged off the plane. “Why the hell did they have this doctor on a million-dollar retainer if he was never available?” Alfred fumed to himself – while shouting instructions at his cellphone from a resort in the Bahamas.
‘Crazy Rich Asians’ author Kevin Kwan on privilege, excess and believability
A jealous husband buys up an entire media company just so he can get one embarrassing article killed about his cheating wife. A beautiful socialite demands that a hospital cardiac unit is relocated into their family mansion, even if the elderly heart-attack patient in need is “touch and go”. These are not the rich Asians who sip Evian by the pool – these are the ones who air-lift their own Swiss Alps water to Singapore.
