The Financial Lives of the Poets : A Novel
Author(s): Jess Walter
“Darkly funny, surprisingly tender . . . witheringly dead-on.” — Los Angeles Times
Named one of the year’s best novels by: Time • Salon.com • Los Angeles Times • NPR/Fresh Air • New West • Kansas City Star • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A comic and heartfelt novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and Cold Millions about how we get to the edge of ruin—and how we begin to make our way back.
What happens when small-time reporter Matthew Prior quits his job to gamble everything on a quixotic notion: a Web site devoted to financial journalism in the form of blank verse?
Before long, he wakes up to find himself jobless, hobbled with debt, spying on his wife's online flirtation, and six days away from losing his home. . . . Until, one night on a desperate two a.m. run to 7-Eleven, he falls in with some local stoners, and they end up hatching the biggest—and most misbegotten—plan yet.
Review(s):
“A deliciously antic tale of an American dream gone very sour...part noir gumshoe, part average Joe, [Matt Prior] is a sharp, wide-eyed, soulful observer, with a keen eye for the layers of bureaucracy and doublespeak.”
“Would be so sad if it weren’t so funny, and so funny if it weren’t so sad. . . . Compassionate, witty and drawn from today’s heartless world, it’s a terrific book.”
“An extremely funny novel…a very smart meditation on what’s gone wrong with both the US economy and those of us who are expected to keep it running…cleverly designed and immensely entertaining.”
“The funniest way-we-live-now book of the year.”
“The novel has warmth, and its protagonist emerges as a bourgeois Everyman of the downturn.”
“[Walter is a] deft humorist and catastrophist. . . . dangerously astute.”
“Walter is one of my favorite young American writers. . . . [Financial Lives] made me laugh more than any other book published this year.”
“A real find….the ultimate something-for-everyone-don’t-skip-must-read.”
“[A] superb farce.”
“Cynical yet warm, this novel about a financial reporter (with a failing website written entirely in blank verse) is a delight.”
ISBN: 9780061916052