The Financial Lives of the Poets

This is going to take some linguistic acrobatics. I'm going to spend the next 500 or so words trying to convince you that a story about bad choices, despair, near-financial ruin, and a failing marriage is one of the funniest, most charming, and downright best books you'll read in a long, long time. Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of the Poets is fantastic -- an authentic and timely story, featuring cameos from the mortgage crisis, the slow death of newspapers, and the increasingly intense culture wars. But Walter manages to keep it light, and it's just a whole lot of fun! The story goes like this: Middle-aged Matt Prior's comfortable upper-middle-class suburban life has imploded, and now he's like a guy in one of those air-blown-money-grab phone booths, trying to grasp at the tatters of his sanity. Two years ago, Matt had quit his secure job as a financial journalist to start a Web site in which financial advice is doled out in poetry form (hence, the novel is peppered with snippets of free verse). At the last minute, he got cold feet, went back to his newspaper, but was laid off four months later. Now, Matt is a few days from losing his house. And his wife, apparently fed up with how things have gone down lately, is ramping up a Facebook flirtation with an old boyfriend. But this all happened "off page." The novel actually begins in medias res with unemployed, increasingly desperate Matt (who I kept envisioning looking exactly like Walter's photo on the back flap) going out late at night to buy milk at a 7-Eleven. Offered a joint by a stoned teenager in the parking lot, Matt thinks "what the hell?" and spends the rest of the night out partying. Over the next few days, Matt agonizes over whether to confront his wife about her impending infidelity and attempts to navigate the maze of automated answering options to beg his mortgage holder for an extension. Finally, believing himself out of sensible options, he decides that the only way to make enough money to solve his problems is to leverage his new pot-smoking buds to help him make a massive marijuana purchase, which he'll then sell to middle-aged folk like himself who are nostalgic for happier times. This is the first of many terrible decisions that speeds Matt's demise. You know how when you spend way more than you wanted to on, say, a suit, and so then it's not hard to convince yourself that "hey, since I'm already way over budget, what's another $100?" So you pick up the silk tie, too? On a much grander scale, this is exactly what Matt does -- bad decisions beget bad decisions, each time eroding any notion of possible consequences. Still, amazingly, by the end of the novel, you just feel terrible for him! The best part of this book is the writing. It's...just...fantastic. The NY Times once called Walter "a ridiculously talented writer," and frankly there's no better way to put it than that. This was an under-the-radar hit in 2009, and landed on many Best Of 2009 lists, including

I'm surprised this book isn't getting more buzz. I suppose the plot might seem a little familiar to anyone who is a fan of quality cable television dramas, but it's still a supremely entertaining novel & one of the funniest books I've read all year. Decades from now, if anyone asks me what it was like to be working and married and raising a family in the angst-ridden year of 2009, I will point them to this novel.

I couldn't put down Jess Walter's latest novel. What a voice! And the way he describes exactly what is going on in the world economy and how we average men have to deal with it is not only scathing, but simple and real. He should be writing Obama's speeches! I just loved reading about Matt's adventures as he tries to save his family from ruin, but just kept driving himself deeper into the well. I honestly didn't know how it would end, and when it did, I was floored. I was wondering what happens now? But Mr. Walters completed the journey just the way it should end--with humor poignancy and again, realism. We may fall flat on our faces, but we get up and start all over again. Isn't that how it should be??

Matt Prior's life has broken down. He's been living the American dream, but like many people who never thought it could happen to him, he's been caught up in the financial meltdown. He's unemployed, deeply in debt, on the verge of foreclosure, caring for his dementia-ridden father, and cluelessly struggling to save his troubled marriage. I've read all of Jess Walter's books, and I think they are all terrific in their own way. Financial Lives of the Poets is his warmest, funniest, and most poignant novel. It's a scathing (but all too true) satire of life in modern day America. Despite the incredible wit and humor, Walter never goes over the top, but remains rooted in a reality with which we can all identify. Shockingly, in channeling Matt's poetic voice, Walter reveals himself to be a talented poet in his own right. This is the best novel I've read in 2009, and plan to read it again.