The Financial Lives of the Poets - Hardcover

Walter, Jess

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061916048 ISBN 13: 9780061916045

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2009

Synopsis

Matt Prior is losing his job, his wife, and his house, and he’s about to lose his mind—until he discovers a way that he might just possibly be able to save it all ... and have a pretty damn great time doing it, in a comic and heartfelt novel from a National Book Award nominee. 40,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

"A real find..the ultimate something-for-everyone-don't-skip-must-read." -- The Daily Beast

"One of the best American writers working today..It's a testament to this author's genius that I could not stop laughing even as he drives home some necessary truths. Walter has written a profound, and profoundly funny, book; this may well be the classic novel of our post-boom era." -- Ben Fountain, author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara

"A laugh out loud, desperately painful account of an economy and a marriage in meltdown." -- Nick Hornby, People Magazine

"Hilarious and timely.Walter grounds the story with moments of genuine feeling.bitter, funny and accurate.Jess Walter's buoyant voice is a fresh pleasure." -- New West

"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." -- Christian Science Monitor

"In this cautionary tale of fiscal follies and collapse Walter delivers a comic and gut-wrenching fable for these impecunious times."--Kansas City Star

"Jess Walter is a brilliant writer, one of the freshest new voices in American literature."--Dallas Morning News

"The funniest way-we-live-now book of the year."--Time magazine

"[Walter is a] deft humorist and catastrophist. . . . dangerously astute."--Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Hilarious and timely...Walter grounds the story with moments of genuine feeling...bitter, funny and accurate...Jess Walter's buoyant voice is a fresh pleasure."--New West

From the Back Cover:

Meet Matt Prior. He's about to lose his job, his wife, his house, maybe his mind. Unless . . .

In the winning and utterly original novels Citizen Vince and The Zero, Jess Walter ("a ridiculously talented writer"—New York Times) painted an America all his own: a land of real, flawed, and deeply human characters coping with the anxieties of their times. Now, in his warmest, funniest, and best novel yet, Walter offers a story as real as our own lives: a tale of overstretched accounts, misbegotten schemes, and domestic dreams deferred.

A few years ago, small-time finance journalist Matthew Prior quit his day job to gamble everything on a quixotic notion: a Web site devoted to financial journalism in the form of blank verse. When his big idea—and his wife's eBay resale business— ends with a whimper (and a garage full of unwanted figurines), they borrow and borrow, whistling past the graveyard of their uncertain dreams. One morning Matt wakes up to find himself jobless, hobbled with debt, spying on his wife's online flirtation, and six days away from losing his home. Is this really how things were supposed to end up for me, he wonders: staying up all night worried, driving to 7-Eleven in the middle of the night to get milk for his boys, and falling in with two local degenerates after they offer him a hit of high-grade marijuana?

Or, he thinks, could this be the solution to all my problems?

Following Matt in his weeklong quest to save his marriage, his sanity, and his dreams, The Financial Lives of the Poets is a hysterical, heartfelt novel about how we can reach the edge of ruin—and how we can begin to make our way back.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061916048
• ISBN 13: 9780061916045
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290