The Financial Lives Of The Poets: A Novel (p.S.) [Paperback]

The Financial Lives of the Poetsis a comic and heartfelt novel from National Book Award nominee Jess Walter, author ofCitizen VinceandThe Zero, about how we get to the edge of ruin—and how we begin to make our way back.

Walter tells the story of Matt Prior, who’s losing his job, his wife, his house, and his mind—until, all of a sudden, he discovers a way that he might just possibly be able to save it all.... and have a pretty damn great time doing it.

 

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.

The cover of this paperback edition comes in three different colors: green, blue, and orange.

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 werent so funny, and so funny if it werent so sad. . . . Compassionate, witty and drawn from todays heartless world, its a terrific book.An extremely funny novel&a very smart meditation on whats 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 Americanl³B