-
“Walter is one of my favorite young American writers…Made me
laugh more than any other book published this year.”
— Nick Hornby
-
“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
-
“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
-
“[Walter is a] deft humorist and catastrophist…dangerously
astute.”
— New York Times
-
“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
-
“Darkly funny, surprisingly tender…witheringly dead-on.”
— Los Angeles Times
-
“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)
-
“The novel has warmth, and its protagonist emerges as a
bourgeois Everyman of the downturn.”
— New Yorker
-
“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
-
“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
-
“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
-
“The funniest way-we-live-now book of the year.”
— Time
-
“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
-
“Jess Walter is a brilliant writer, one of the freshest new
voices in American literature.”
— Dallas Morning News
-
“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
-
“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
-
“Matt Prior…is an Everyman for our parlous times.”
— Seattle Times
-
“A refreshing reminder that fiction remains a relevant,
vital way to understand ourselves.”
— Oregonian (Portland, OR)
-
“In this cautionary tale of fiscal follies and collapse
Walter delivers a comic and gut-wrenching fable for these impecunious times.”
— Kansas City Star
-
“America’s first Great Recession novel.”
— Spokane Spokesman-Review