Janet Maslin
The Financial Lives of the Poets is less memorable for its title than for the success with which it captures fiscal panic and frustration. Matt ambles though this book delivering blistering wisecracks about the factors that contributed to his family's fall. From an eBay shopping addiction (Lisa thought she was buying valuable collectibles) to a scathing thumbnail summary of the changes destroying the newspaper business, this book is all too dangerously astute. Mixing financial advice with poetry is a terrible idea. But combining the elements of tragedy with a sitcom sensibility is a good one. And it's what Jess Walter continues to do best.
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
National Book Award–finalist Walter does for the nation’s bleak financial landscape what he did for 9/11 in The Zero: whip-smart satire with heart. Matt Prior quits his job as a business reporter to start Poetfolio.com, a Web site featuring poetry about finance, or “money-lit.” Unsurprisingly, it tanks, and Matt returns to the newspaper, only to be laid off with a meager severance package. Now not only are the Priors in danger of losing their house, but Matt is convinced that his wife, Lisa, is having an affair with an old boyfriend she rediscovered during her lengthy nightly Facebook sessions. With two sons in overpriced Catholic school and his increasingly senile father to support, Matt’s bank accounts dwindle amid his financial planner’s dire predictions (diagnosis: “fiscal Ebola”). When an appealing but illegal moneymaking opportunity presents itself, Matt jumps at the chance. The decision to include snippets of Matt’s poetry in the novel was a risky one, but Walter pulls it off, never resorting to pretension or overused metaphors for life’s meltdowns. (Oct.)
Library Journal
A new novel by the Edgar Award-winning author of Citizen Vince is cause for celebration; though tedious passages of indulgent free verse threaten to derail an otherwise promising premise, Walter manages to pull it off with zippy dialog and a likable, if extremely flawed, main character. Matt Prior is a former journalist who bailed from his newspaper job to start a misconceived web site—poetfolio.com—featuring literary writing about the financial world. Now his web site is floundering, and he has no job prospects in sight. Convinced that his wife's furtive text messages signal an affair with a high school flame and desperate for cash to prevent his mortgage lender from foreclosing on their house, Matt stumbles into an unlikely money-making venture: drug dealer to the middle-aged. Fans of the TV series Weeds will not be disappointed. Manic, sleep-deprived, cringe-inducing hilarity ensues as Prior sinks lower and lower toward rock bottom before he finds a glimmer of redemption. VERDICT Prior is a zany, foul-mouthed Willy Loman in search of a stimulus package, and readers looking for some humor with their layoff notices will certainly relate.—Christine Perkins, Bellingham P.L., WA
Kirkus Reviews
Unemployed suburban dad teetering on the brink comes up with a high-risk, recession-proof way to get out of debt. The American Dream, for former newspaper journalist and failed Web entrepreneur Matt Prior, is not living up to its hype. Broke after sinking his savings into poetfolio.com, a website catering to his twin passions for financial advice and free-verse poetry, he owes more on his house than it's worth and has to contend with the knowledge that his sexy wife Lisa is carrying on a virtual affair with her high-school boyfriend Chuck, with whom she reconnected on Facebook. Private-school tuition for his two young sons and the care for his elderly dementia-addled father add to his woes. But as dire as it looks-and sardonic Matt is fully aware of the role he has played in his personal ruin-opportunity emerges in the unlikeliest of places. He meets a couple of local youths at his neighborhood 7-Eleven and, after a surreal evening spent smoking really good marijuana with them, realizes that some businesses are most definitely not hurting in this troubled economy. So he decides to become a 46-year-old pot dealer, selling to other middle-aged, middle-class types. Through his new friends he gets hooked up with a local grow operation called "Weedland" and finds there is definitely a clientele for his high-quality product, which he vows he will only sell until he gets solvent again. Nothing, of course, goes according to plan, and Matt gets to see any remaining black-and-white notions he ever had get obliterated-for his own good. Walter's bitterly funny follow-up to The Zero (2006) could not be more topical in its depiction of a leveraged to-the-hilt culture run amuck, and wiseass Matt makesfor a distinctly flawed Everyman running out of chances. Midlife crisis farce laced with some larger truths about how we live now.
From the Publisher
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.” — Washington Post
“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.” — Arizona Republic
“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
“The funniest way-we-live-now book of the year.” — Time magazine
“The novel has warmth, and its protagonist emerges as a bourgeois Everyman of the downturn.” — The New Yorker
“[Walter is a] deft humorist and catastrophist. . . . dangerously astute.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times
“Walter is one of my favorite young American writers. . . . [Financial Lives] made me laugh more than any other book published this year.” — Nick Hornby, Parade
“A real find….the ultimate something-for-everyone-don’t-skip-must-read.” — Sara Nelson, The Daily Beast
“[A] superb farce.” — Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
“Cynical yet warm, this novel about a financial reporter (with a failing website written entirely in blank verse) is a delight.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets is gasp out loud funny. It’s also sufficiently true to life that you’re grateful it’s not your life. Middle-class mayhem is just the best, at least in Walter’s hands.” — New York Daily News
“Darkly funny, surprisingly tender . . . witheringly dead-on.” — Los Angeles Times
“A refreshing reminder that fiction remains a relevant, vital way to understand ourselves.” — The Oregonian (Portland)
“In this cautionary tale of fiscal follies and collapse Walter delivers a comic and gut-wrenching fable for these impecunious times.” — Kansas City Star
“A comic masterpiece… packed [with] life and wry truth.” — Jeffrey Burke, Bloomberg News
“National Book Award-finalist Walter does for the nation’s bleak financial landscape what he did for 9-11 in The Zero: whip-smart satire with heart.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“When it comes to explaining to me my own too often baffling nation, there’s no one writing today whom I trust as completely as Jess Walter. His intelligence and sympathy and great wit inform every page—indeed every sentence—of his terrific new novel, The Financial Lives of the Poets. ” — Richard Russo, author of That Old Cape Magic and Empire Falls
“Jess Walter’s smart and big-hearted take on our bleak national moment is a welcome relief. The Financial Lives of the Poets is a rollicking fiction and an affecting family portrait, as well as a mordantly funny cautionary tale.” — Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land and Venus Drive
“Confirms Jess Walter as a writer of the first rank.…his eye keen for the true values of the human heart. This is a hopped-up, raucous stunner of a novel with a hero who’s funny enough to make you weep for what we’ve lost.” — Whitney Terrell, author of The King of Kings County and The Huntsman
“Jess Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets is a comic, graceful parable of marriage and money troubles in which a well-meaning family man makes decisions that are seriously stupid—and entertaining and American.” — Sarah Vowell, author of Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates
“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
Entertainment Weekly
Cynical yet warm, this novel about a financial reporter (with a failing website written entirely in blank verse) is a delight.
Time magazine
The funniest way-we-live-now book of the year.
Maureen Corrigan
[A] superb farce.
The New Yorker
The novel has warmth, and its protagonist emerges as a bourgeois Everyman of the downturn.
Washington Post
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.
Sara Nelson
A real find….the ultimate something-for-everyone-don’t-skip-must-read.
Arizona Republic
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.
Christian Science Monitor
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.
Nick Hornby
Walter is one of my favorite young American writers. . . . [Financial Lives] made me laugh more than any other book published this year.
Ben Fountain
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.
Sarah Vowell
Jess Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets is a comic, graceful parable of marriage and money troubles in which a well-meaning family man makes decisions that are seriously stupid—and entertaining and American.
Whitney Terrell
Confirms Jess Walter as a writer of the first rank.…his eye keen for the true values of the human heart. This is a hopped-up, raucous stunner of a novel with a hero who’s funny enough to make you weep for what we’ve lost.
Sam Lipsyte
Jess Walter’s smart and big-hearted take on our bleak national moment is a welcome relief. The Financial Lives of the Poets is a rollicking fiction and an affecting family portrait, as well as a mordantly funny cautionary tale.
Richard Russo
When it comes to explaining to me my own too often baffling nation, there’s no one writing today whom I trust as completely as Jess Walter. His intelligence and sympathy and great wit inform every page—indeed every sentence—of his terrific new novel, The Financial Lives of the Poets.
Spokane Spokesman-Review
America’s first Great Recession novel.
New West
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.
Jeffrey Burke
A comic masterpiece… packed [with] life and wry truth.
Kansas City Star
In this cautionary tale of fiscal follies and collapse Walter delivers a comic and gut-wrenching fable for these impecunious times.
The Oregonian (Portland)
A refreshing reminder that fiction remains a relevant, vital way to understand ourselves.
Seattle Times
Matt Prior . . . is an Everyman for our parlous times.
Dallas Morning News
Jess Walter is a brilliant writer, one of the freshest new voices in American literature.
Los Angeles Times
Darkly funny, surprisingly tender . . . witheringly dead-on.
New York Daily News
Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets is gasp out loud funny. It’s also sufficiently true to life that you’re grateful it’s not your life. Middle-class mayhem is just the best, at least in Walter’s hands.
The Must List
Cynical yet warm, this novel about a financial reporter (with a failing website written entirely in blank verse) is a delight.
The New Yorker
The novel has warmth, and its protagonist emerges as a bourgeois Everyman of the downturn.
Washington Post
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.
Time Magazine
"The funniest way-we-live-now book of the year."
