{"product_id":"the-financial-lives-of-the-poets-isbn-9780061916045","title":"The Financial Lives of the Poets","description":"\u003cem\u003eThe Financial Lives of the Poets\u003c\/em\u003e is a comic and heartfelt novel from National Book Award nominee Jess Walter, author of \u003cem\u003eCitizen Vince\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Zero\u003c\/em\u003e, 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. | \u003cblockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eMeet Matt Prior. He's about to lose his job, his wife, his house, maybe his mind. Unless . . . \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the winning and utterly original novels \u003cem\u003eCitizen Vince\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Zero\u003c\/em\u003e, Jess Walter (\"a ridiculously talented writer\"—\u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e) 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. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA 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. \u003cem\u003eIs this really how things were supposed to end up for me\u003c\/em\u003e, 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?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOr, he thinks, \u003cem\u003ecould this be the solution to all my problems?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFollowing Matt in his weeklong quest to save his marriage, his sanity, and his dreams, \u003cem\u003eThe Financial Lives of the Poets\u003c\/em\u003e is a hysterical, heartfelt novel about how we can reach the edge of ruin—and how we can begin to make our way back.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“A real find….the ultimate something-for-everyone-don’t-skip-must-read.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSara Nelson, The Daily Beast\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“National Book Award-finalist Walter does for the nation’s bleak financial landscape what he did for 9-11 in \u003ci\u003eThe Zero\u003c\/i\u003e: whip-smart satire with heart.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Walter is one of my favorite young American writers. . . . [Financial Lives] made me laugh more than any other book published this year.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNick Hornby, Parade\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Cynical yet warm, this novel about a financial reporter (with a failing website written entirely in blank verse) is a delight.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Outstanding. Riveting. Never sacrifices action for emotional impact.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A refreshing reminder that fiction remains a relevant, vital way to understand ourselves.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Oregonian (Portland)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jess Walter is a brilliant writer, one of the freshest new voices in American literature.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDallas Morning News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Walter is a] deft humorist and catastrophist. . . . dangerously astute.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJanet Maslin, New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[A] superb farce.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Darkly funny, surprisingly tender . . . witheringly dead-on.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eArizona Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In this cautionary tale of fiscal follies and collapse Walter delivers a comic and gut-wrenching fable for these impecunious times.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKansas City Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Walter’s \u003cem\u003eThe Financial Lives of the Poets\u003c\/em\u003e 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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Daily News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The novel has warmth, and its protagonist emerges as a bourgeois Everyman of the downturn.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jess Walter’s \u003ci\u003eThe Financial Lives of the Poets\u003c\/i\u003e 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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSarah Vowell, author of Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBen Fountain, author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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...The novel delivers a scathing indictment of our country’s character and the ‘ruined systems’ we labor under.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A comic masterpiece… packed [with] life and wry truth.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJeffrey Burke, Bloomberg News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The funniest way-we-live-now book of the year.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTime magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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. ” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRichard Russo, author of That Old Cape Magic and Empire Falls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSam Lipsyte, author of Home Land and Venus Drive\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhitney Terrell, author of The King of Kings County and The Huntsman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890294419685,"sku":"NP9780061916045","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780061916045.jpg?v=1730232971","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-financial-lives-of-the-poets-isbn-9780061916045","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}