

The Financial Lives of the Poets
Author: Jess Walter
Narrator: Jess Walter
Unabridged: 7 hr 55 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: HarperAudio
Published: 11/17/2009
Categories: Fiction, Satire, Humorous Fiction, Absurdist
Author: Jess Walter
Narrator: Jess Walter
Unabridged: 7 hr 55 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: HarperAudio
Published: 11/17/2009
Categories: Fiction, Satire, Humorous Fiction, Absurdist
Jess Walter is the author of seven previous novels, including the bestsellers The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins, the National Book Award Finalist The Zero, and Citizen Vince, winner of the Edgar Award for best novel. His short fiction, collected in The Angel of Rome and We Live in Water, has won the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize and appeared three times in Best American Short Stories. He lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington.
I recall standing in Seattle's Queen Anne Bookstore on a rainy late autumn afternoon in 2009, reading the jacket of this book and ultimately, passing. I wasn't familiar with Jess Walter, although this book seemed to be making quite the splash. I was, however, all too familiar with the effects of the......more
How could a story about a family in crisis be so comical? Most of the time I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry . This is actually a pretty funny story mixed with the sad state of affairs that Matt Prior finds himself in. During the financial crisis of 2008, out of a job, financially in de......more
Warning: The first part of this review consists of my idle musings on a topic that occurred to me while reading this book. If you don’t give a damn about that and just want to get on with the review, skip down. Ever notice how it seems like the same idea start showing up in a variety of tv shows, fil......more
With all of those Breaking Bad/Weeds comparisons in Kemper’s most excellent review, I had rather high hopes for this one. And that opening act did little to dissuade my enthusiasm. “Here they are again—the bent boys, baked and buzzed boys, wasted, red-eyed, dry-mouth high boys, coursing narrow br......more
I just fell in love with Jess Walter's "Beautiful Ruins", and I was really happy to see that he's been able to do his magic with this book too. The striking element in Walter's writing (in these 2 books at least) is his sense of humor, and that's where I see some readers not liking it because they j......more