Meet Matt Prior. He's about to lose his job, his wife, his house, maybe his mind. Unless . . .
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Oct 16, 2010
Kemper
rated it: 
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, films, or books at roughly the same time? I’m not talking about the straight-up rip-offs that appear when something like The DaVinci Code hits it big or when trends like vampires or zombie More...
Ever notice how it seems like the same idea start showing up in a variety of tv shows, films, or books at roughly the same time? I’m not talking about the straight-up rip-offs that appear when something like The DaVinci Code hits it big or when trends like vampires or zombie More...
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Jan 31, 2012
Jeanne
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Matt Prior is in trouble. He quit his job as a journalist to set himself up as a poet/financial advisor, with a website called “poetfolio.com”. This idea is not as successful as he'd hoped it would be and when we meet Matt, he is a week away from losing his house. Not only that, he hasn’t told his wife about this potential disaster because they’re not communicating very well right now and he thinks she’s carrying on an online flirtation with an old flame. He’s searching for a way to keep his hom
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Mar 25, 2010
Ed
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Heard good things about this book and since it was "if you like that one, you'll like this one" book recommendation from what was my favorite read of last year, Jonathan Tropper's "This Is Where I Leave You," I thought I'd give it a shot. I can see why the books were grouped together as Tropper's Judd Foxman is in a similar mid-life-ish crisis/downward spiral mode as Matt Prior, whose life is in disarray after his dream of a financial poetry website (poetfolio.com!) spectacu
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Aug 30, 2009
Mike
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Jess Walter's two previous novels—The Zero and Citizen Vince—showed him to be one of the finest novelists at work today. It's a bit of a letdown, then, to say that The Financial Lives of the Poets (awful title, by the way; the folks at Harper, as usual, clearly asleep at the switch) is a step sideways at best. The novel, which relates the misadventures of a downward-spiraling burgher named Matt, is a likable enough affair, with a soupçon of topical angst, but has little of its predecessors' zip
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Sep 22, 2011
Patrick
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The Financial Lives Of The Poets is the latest novel by Spokane author Jess Walter. His last novel was a sort of mystery that was concerned with post 9/11 America. It still hasn’t faded from American consciousness nor from characters in Walter’s latest novel, however, there are bigger fish to fry, namely the economic depression and housing bubble collapse. Most of the blurbs on the back of the book by noted authors talk about how funny it is. And, indeed, there are some comedic moments, but ther
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Sep 21, 2011
Laura
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This is the first time I've read anything by Jess Walter, and I really got a kick out of his self-deprecating, clever wit and ironic style. The main character's tragedy is played out like a comedy, and Walter captured the desperate financial times we now face. Our unemployed hero, Matt, heads out to a 7-11 one night to buy milk, but he makes one wrong turn in the throes of desperation. One wrong turn leads to another, and before he realizes what's happened, he is a fledgling, hapless drug-deal
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Sep 15, 2011
Steve
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Richard Russo, one of my favorite writers, was asked a while back to name some recent books he’d enjoyed. He rattled off a few titles then ended his list with “anything by Jess Walter.” I can see why. Walter is funny, writes as though it’s an easy thing to do, reveals what we recognize as true human nature, and creates characters who aren’t perfect, but you find yourself pulling for anyway. In other words, he’s a lot like Russo. This particular one may not reach the same heights as Citizen
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Jun 25, 2011
Megan
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My sister took some kind of American Fiction class and this was one of the assigned readings. It was lying around the house so I picked it up --this is definitely not the kind of book I would normally buy or even borrow from the library (white writer gets involved with some unsavory dealings! does that sound like something I give two shits about?) but I realized that the novel had grown on me when I got excited that the protagonist was going to get out his foreclosure by selling two pounds of we
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Jun 18, 2011
Britni
rated it:
Meet Matt Prior. He's losing his job, his wife, and his house. And he's about to lose his mind- until, at the last moment, he discovers a way he might just possibly manage to save it all...and have a pretty [word deleted] great time doing it.
While I may not have loved the plot or subject of this novel, I was fascinated by the writing. This book follows Matt as he tries to make money by becoming a drug dealer who knows nothing about the streets. Of course he gets caught immediately More...
While I may not have loved the plot or subject of this novel, I was fascinated by the writing. This book follows Matt as he tries to make money by becoming a drug dealer who knows nothing about the streets. Of course he gets caught immediately More...
Apr 21, 2011
Jonathan
rated it:
I picked up this book because it had a glowing endorsement on the cover from several institutions I respect. Also, I had about 2 minutes to select a book and it was both brightly colored and on the display shelf at the library.
The book opens with our hero, Matthew Prior, near rock bottom. He's lost all his money in the financial meltdown. Also, he's pretty close to losing his house, and his wife. Things do not look good. And there's nothing like constantly impending disaster to keep More...
The book opens with our hero, Matthew Prior, near rock bottom. He's lost all his money in the financial meltdown. Also, he's pretty close to losing his house, and his wife. Things do not look good. And there's nothing like constantly impending disaster to keep More...
Mar 12, 2011
Greg
rated it: 
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 int More...
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 int More...
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Mar 10, 2011
Darrell
rated it:
Mid-life crises come in many shapes and sizes, tailor-made for the individual, and not always of the sexual variety. Matt Prior is astonished to discover his wife is the one straying from the marital bed when he catches her “sexting” a high-school flame — while cozily PJd and covered up in said bed. His own crisis is no less surprising, of course. Having mortgaged his family well past the eyeballs, he left his increasingly insecure job at a dying newspaper to begin his own web-service: dishing f
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Feb 09, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
The Financial Lives of the Poets is Jess Walter's fifth novel.
Matt Prior is only six days away from losing his house; his financial journalism website business (written in the form of poetry) was a total bust as well as his wife Lisa's ebay business. When Matt visits the local 7/11 to pick up milk for breakfast, he befriends two unlikely characters and smokes marijuana with them. Suddenly, Matt is inspired to find new ways to generate income for his family.
The Financial L More...
Matt Prior is only six days away from losing his house; his financial journalism website business (written in the form of poetry) was a total bust as well as his wife Lisa's ebay business. When Matt visits the local 7/11 to pick up milk for breakfast, he befriends two unlikely characters and smokes marijuana with them. Suddenly, Matt is inspired to find new ways to generate income for his family.
The Financial L More...
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Feb 02, 2011
Christie
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Here’s a book I never would have chosen for myself in a million years, but which actually turned out to be better than I thought it would. The Financial Lives of Poets follows one week in the life of a middle-aged guy named Matt Prior. Matt lives somewhere in America with his wife, two young sons and senile father. Matt used to be a newspaper business writer, but he took a buy-out so he could start a website which would deliver financial advice through poetry. It’s no surprise that it flopped.
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Jan 17, 2011
Larry
rated it:
Recession lit, but funny and mostly engaging. Too bad this didn't come out before the TV show "Weeds" and "Breaking Bad" because now the plot about a middle class guy trying to keep his house through selling drugs seems tame and derivative.
And if marijuana had been legalized last fall in California, it would seem quaint and dated, too. But never mind all that. The narrator is someone I can relate to, having been in journalism, having been downsized, and having made More...
And if marijuana had been legalized last fall in California, it would seem quaint and dated, too. But never mind all that. The narrator is someone I can relate to, having been in journalism, having been downsized, and having made More...
Jan 13, 2011
Alyce
rated it:
In these days of the Great Repression, readers seek escapism: fantasy, romance and sparkling vampires. Jess Walter's book, by contrast, is an unblinking look at the reality of many Americans. The protagonist, Matt Prior, is about to lose his house and possibly his emotionally estranged wife. Matt is a poor communicator when it comes to his family, so he bears these burdens alone. Obsessed with such thoughts, he goes to the convenience store to buy milk and walks right into a youth-filled world o
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Dec 12, 2010
Charles
rated it:
This book is a smart and funny tragedy that many readers will relate to. Set in today's sputtering economy this book is a first person account of what happens when a jobless reporter is driven to desperate measures. So well written I feel like he's sitting at a bar talking to me as I read. Sometimes, I give a polite nod to the pages, as I would to a long-winded story teller.
The protagonist, Matt Prior, is doing everything possible to keep his house from being foreclosed. He's a lik More...
The protagonist, Matt Prior, is doing everything possible to keep his house from being foreclosed. He's a lik More...
Dec 05, 2010
Tony
rated it:
Walter, Jess. THE FINANCIAL LIVES OF THE POETS. (2009). ***. One of my friends recommended this book to me and and I must have looked like a person in the throes of dementia, since I hadn’t heard of the book or the author. Come to find out that the author won an Edgar for one of his previous books, “Citizen Vince,” and was a finalist for the National Book Award for “The Zero.” I’m just not keeping up! Judging from this novel, Walter is a very good writer who manages to tell his story with
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Nov 30, 2010
The Financial Lives of the Poets, by Jess Walter, B. Narrated by Jess Walter, produced by Harper Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
This is a funny and endearing book in some ways, but not enough of a mystery for me. Jess Walter is an extremely talented narrator of this book. He knew just how to demonstrate Matt Prior’s voice in this book. Matt is a journalist who wrote a column about finances and did well at investing for himself for a long time-even through the tech crash. But More...
This is a funny and endearing book in some ways, but not enough of a mystery for me. Jess Walter is an extremely talented narrator of this book. He knew just how to demonstrate Matt Prior’s voice in this book. Matt is a journalist who wrote a column about finances and did well at investing for himself for a long time-even through the tech crash. But More...
Nov 25, 2010
Jenny
rated it:
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/lau...
Laughing on the Way to Bankruptcy: Jess Walter’s “Financial Lives of the Poets”
A laid-off newspaper reporter turns to dealing pot in Jess Walter's new novel.
By Jenny Shank, 10-05-09
The Financial Lives of the Poets
by Jess Walter
Harper, 290 pages, $25.99
In his hilarious and timely new novel, Spokane’s Jess Walter explores the maxim that there’s nothing more dangerous than an unemployed man, even thoug More...
Laughing on the Way to Bankruptcy: Jess Walter’s “Financial Lives of the Poets”
A laid-off newspaper reporter turns to dealing pot in Jess Walter's new novel.
By Jenny Shank, 10-05-09
The Financial Lives of the Poets
by Jess Walter
Harper, 290 pages, $25.99
In his hilarious and timely new novel, Spokane’s Jess Walter explores the maxim that there’s nothing more dangerous than an unemployed man, even thoug More...
Nov 03, 2010
Jennifer (JC-S)
rated it: 
‘Don’t look back, just keep moving forward.’
A few years before the novel opens, Matthew Prior quit his day job as a financial reporter in order to set up a web site offering financial advice in verse. Alas, poetfolio.com was not a success and returning to the newspaper business wasn’t an option either. The economy has tanked, and here’s middle-aged Matt with no job, no real job prospects and about to lose the family home.
Yes, the American dream has turned into a nightma More...
A few years before the novel opens, Matthew Prior quit his day job as a financial reporter in order to set up a web site offering financial advice in verse. Alas, poetfolio.com was not a success and returning to the newspaper business wasn’t an option either. The economy has tanked, and here’s middle-aged Matt with no job, no real job prospects and about to lose the family home.
Yes, the American dream has turned into a nightma More...
Nov 01, 2010
Diane
rated it:
I have to admit, a novel titled The Financial Lives of Poets is not something I would normally rush to read. Why would I care about finance and poets? But since people I respect raved about this book, I gave it a try.
I'm so glad I did! Jess Walter has written a dazzling story of a young suburban family in the throws of the national economic crisis that threatens not only their financial stability but their very existence as a family unit.
Matt left his job as a business wr More...
I'm so glad I did! Jess Walter has written a dazzling story of a young suburban family in the throws of the national economic crisis that threatens not only their financial stability but their very existence as a family unit.
Matt left his job as a business wr More...
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Oct 14, 2010
David
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It seemed like a good idea at the time to Matt Prior: to leave his job as a financial journalist and set up a website focused on providing financial writing of a higher literary quality than usual – financial advice in the form of poetry, anyone? The site proved unpopular, and Matt is now just a few days away from losing the home he shares with his wife Lisa, sons Frankiin and Teddy, and his ailing father Jerry – not that he’s told any of them. What’s more, Matt thinks Lisa has reconnected with
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Oct 12, 2010
Erin
rated it:
Jess Walter writes how I think; dialogue fast and racing, thoughts building upon one another like a giant game of Jenga, piling up dangerously and ending never anywhere near where they started.
Despite the relatively melancholy subject matter of his book The Financial Lives of the Poets (towering debt, unemployment, a wayward wife and a failed web site) there are dozens of laugh out loud moments, moments when you think Matthew Prior can't possibly make any more self sabotaging decisi More...
Despite the relatively melancholy subject matter of his book The Financial Lives of the Poets (towering debt, unemployment, a wayward wife and a failed web site) there are dozens of laugh out loud moments, moments when you think Matthew Prior can't possibly make any more self sabotaging decisi More...
Aug 31, 2010
Justin
rated it: 
I honestly have no idea why people like this book. Why? Will someone tell me why? The whole thing can best be summed up by the fact that, while our protagonist is looking at a pile of lumber in his front yard his son says it looks like Jenga. This not only leads said character to cry because of how Jenga was once his son's favorite game, but also to *compare life to Jenga.* That's roughly the level of depth you're dealing with here. Since I can't understand what's meant to be good, I should at l
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May 10, 2010
Becky
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Jess Walter is a writer who refuses to write books that will allow him to be pigeon-holed. His Citizen Vince is the darkly funny and oddly warm story of Vince Camden, a low-level hoodlum relocated by the Witness Protection Program to Spokane from New York, coming to terms with his new environment in the only way he knows how. His next novel, The Zero, could not be more different; it is the vaguely surrealistic story of Brian Remy, an amnesiac cop recruited by a government agency to gather paper
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May 10, 2010
Michael
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Since finishing Infinite Jest almost 3 years ago, I have been searching for an author, a novel, a blurb, an ingredients list, anything, that would give me that same can't-wait-to-sit-down-and-read feeling that DFW's writing elicits. Ain't found a single piece of writing to do so... nothing. Some have come close (Irvine Welsh, Augusten Burroughs, maybe even Dave Eggers) but when a writer is able to make you laugh with every sentence, and then also somehow make you feel smarter, like you've grow
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May 06, 2010
Timothy
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After Walters' CITIZEN VINCE, I thought I'd added a new (to me) writer to my Top Ten pantheon, but then I read THE ZERO, which I found overambitious -- not a quality to which I usually object -- and overwritten. I gave him full credit for trying, though. And then he produces this book, which has stopped me in my tracks. It's funny, scary, heart-wrenching, and flawlessly written, with characters I liked so much that there were times I could barely force myself to keep reading because I was afr
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Apr 08, 2010
Ed
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I wouldn't normally pick this book up to read, however, it was recommended to me by a friend. Thank God for friends. I will read just about anything that pertains to Poets or Poetry. This was unexpected though. What a creative commentary on the inner workings of our creative makeup. The book clearly shines as an evocative appreciation of the process that presides over our daily wrestling with the pressures of what we, as a culture and community, deal with on a minute by minute basis. It is almos
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Feb 06, 2010
Laura Stone
rated it:
Eaudio – read very well by the author
In six days Matthew Prior has to come up with $30,000 balloon payment for his over-mortgaged house. That might not be so daunting if he hadn’t used most of the refinancing money after quitting his journalism job to start a website that dispenses financial advice through poetry. Or if his wife Lisa hadn’t had that eBay shopping addiction which she’s replaced with texting and social-networking. Suffering from insomnia, Matt’s at the local 7-Eleven buyi More...
In six days Matthew Prior has to come up with $30,000 balloon payment for his over-mortgaged house. That might not be so daunting if he hadn’t used most of the refinancing money after quitting his journalism job to start a website that dispenses financial advice through poetry. Or if his wife Lisa hadn’t had that eBay shopping addiction which she’s replaced with texting and social-networking. Suffering from insomnia, Matt’s at the local 7-Eleven buyi More...
