The Financial Lives of the Poets Audiobook By Jess Walter cover art

The Financial Lives of the Poets

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The Financial Lives of the Poets

By: Jess Walter
Narrated by: Jess Walter
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“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.

©2009 Jess Walter; (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers Absurdist Dark Humor Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Heartfelt Funny Witty Thought-Provoking
Sharp Wit • Compelling Storyline • Perfect Timing • Complex Protagonist • Rich Prose • Unexpected Twists

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I started The Financial Lives of the Poets because I loved Jess Walter's latest novel, Beautiful Ruins, so much. Matt Prior is in the middle of a mid-life crisis, which through his own choices, rapidly escalates to a mid-life catastrophe. He quits his job as a newspaper financial reporter to create poetfolio, a web site that combines investment advice and poetry. That goes over as well as a realistic person might predict, but it's also just the tip of the iceberg. Matt's wife is having a text/Facebook/in person affair with a guy from Lumberland after she has filled their garage with crap from eBay and failed to resell it, and his senile father has to move in after losing everything to a stripper. Matt is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and foreclosure, when he meets Skeet and Jamie one night at the local 7-11. They introduce him to designer marijuana, and Matt gets the brilliant idea to cash in his miniscule 401(k) and use the proceeds to buy and sell marijuana. This is how he will dig himself out of his financial chasm, but this plan also goes as well as a rational person might predict.

Matt is an interesting protagonist, very well-written by Walter. One of the most interesting things about him is that he seems to be quite aware of the financial, emotional, and bureaucratic messes that he (and our society) have made, yet he goes on making increasingly desperate decisions. Walter doesn't write Matt as hapless, so we cheer for his indomitability while shaking our heads at his incompetence. Ordinarily a character like this might irritate me, but Jess Walter's amazing writing made this a pleasure to read. Matt does learn a lesson that we should all take notice of: "The edge is so close to where we live."

The edge is so close to where we live.

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What other book might you compare The Financial Lives of the Poets to and why?

It definitely fits into what you might call the "middle-aged suburban comic nightmare" genre of fiction on the lines of Franzen's "The Corrections," Chabon's "Wonder Boys" or Clarke's "An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England." What makes this stand out in the field is that the story is small and controlled (none of the sprawl that often makes books like these wander too far), and absolutely every element pays off in larger meaning. (The fact that the first chapter takes place at a 7-11 becomes a parodic model for references to 9/11 later, and it works smartly.) In short, there is warm intelligence and compassion for ever character on every page, while at the same time Walter creates a tremendously important document about the human costs of the 2008 recession, and of the modern world in general. Just amazing, and well worth the visit. He had me at chapter one.

What does Jess Walter bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He has the delivery EXACTLY, as you might expect, so that even parenthetical comments sound perfectly parenthetical and don't stop the forward flow of a sentence. Best of all, and most important, is that he delivers all the jokes perfectly: not only in their timing, but in the voice of the appropriate characters. He's got a good ear for humanity, and it shows in his telling.

Hilarious and touching

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My first experience of this author. Mind well and fully blown by the brilliance of both book and narration.

Utterly astonishing

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I'd be hard-pressed to find a more poetically written contemporary novel. That said, it incredibly depressing, even with its reprieves.

Beautifully Written; Huge Downer

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I started with Jess Walter with “Beautiful Ruins” and decided to listen to ANYTHING he wrote. I have to say this is nothing like Beautiful Ruins – which took him 7 years (?) to write.

This story is reminiscent of youthful thoughts of getting out of a financial disaster with ‘easy’ money with a dash of danger (aka: excitement). Looking back I would say it was mildly juvenile.

I didn’t lose interest but I was definitely tossed back and forth from the 70’s to the present - how to make it in difficult situations. I don’t know how to recommend this book. It is bleak but not. It has its moments of humor, which would have been more humorous if the situations were not so bleak. Inevitability is another word that comes to mind. I will listen to anything else Jess Walter write. I doubt I will listen to this one again.

Liked it – didn’t Love it

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