The Financial Lives of the Poets

The Financial Lives of the Poets

Summary

From the author of the bestselling Beautiful Ruins comes The Financial Lives of Poets - a brilliantly funny novel about a man who, in an attempt to save himself, may destroy everything he loves.

Meet Matt Prior. He's about to lose his job, his house, his wife, and maybe his sanity too.

Financial journalist Matt quit his job to set up a website which couldn't fail. Only now he's woken up to the biggest crisis since the Great Crash, and it has. He's got six days to save his house. It's hard to focus when your wife's having an online affair with her childhood sweetheart, but there are children to think about . . . So when he gets hold of some high-grade dope and finds he can sell a piece on at a profit, he begins to think this might be his salvation.

A fabulously funny, heartfelt novel about how we can skate close to the edge of ruin - and pull back.

'A beautifully laid-back exultation of the human connections that make life worth living' Metro

'Ecstatically funny and unusually big-hearted' Financial Times

'It made me laugh more than any other book I've read this year' Nick Hornby

Reviews

  • 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 of his terrific new novel
    Richard Russo

About the author

Jess Walter

Jess Walter is the author of six novels, including The Financial Lives of the Poets and The Cold Millions. Beautiful Ruins was a New York Times bestseller, and We Live in Water was one of Barack Obama's books of 2019. Jess Walter lives in Spokane, Washington with his family.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more