Here is a book coming out in a few weeks that I learned about from The Savvy Reader, the blog written by Deanna at HarperCollins Canada: The Financial Lives Of The Poets by Jess Walter. Her synopsis:
As he did in his landmark novel The Zero, considered by many readers and critics the best post-9/11 work of fiction, Jess Walter once again captures the current zeitgeist of universal financial meltdown through this story of one over-leveraged family’s near collapse. The story revolves around the Priors -- a typical middle class family -- mortgaged to their hairlines and compromised by years of foolhardy moneymaking schemes (Matt’s financial-slash-poetry web site, Lisa’s eBay figurine business). A chance late-night encounter with a couple of neighbourhood youths and some high-grade weed sets Matt off on his next entrepreneurial disaster. You can’t help but be captivated as Walter blends high anxiety with his impeccable comic tone in a novel that is certain to expand his growing readership.
I also found this review from Page&Turners on Goodreads:
In this hilarious and poignant novel, Edgar-award winning author Jess Walter spares nothing and no one as he sets his sniper-sights on 9/11, drug dealers, marriage, modern masculinity, social networking sites, eBay, smug economists, baby-boomers, the rich, the poor, the old, the demise of the newspaper, Somali pirates, climate change, and, above all, the Global Financial Crisis – its causes and effects, and our collective complicity in it. All of this enveloped in a suitably ridiculous but very entertaining plot involving an out-of-work journalist’s attempt to save his house by pursuing a rather dubious entrepreneurial venture. The internal monologue, appropriately distracted and neurotic, is something like a cross between Updike's Rabbit Angstrom and Sam Lipsyte's Teabag. "Financial Lives" is an angry, absurd, and hilarious rant.
This book kind of sounds like a cross between Jonathan Franzen and Tom Wolfe (the Bonfire era). I'd love to read it! It comes out on Sept. 22.
Sounds like an interesting book...thanks for the heads up
Posted by: Serena (Savvy Verse & Wit) | September 11, 2009 at 09:12 AM
It does look good. I'm adding it to my "to read" list.
thanks!
Posted by: Amie aka MammaLoves | September 11, 2009 at 12:37 PM
This looks interesting - and I love the title!
Posted by: Belle | September 11, 2009 at 08:20 PM
Sounds good--I've always loved Bonfire of the Vanities...and dysfunctional families--although Franzen I find a little too depressing!
Posted by: Kiki | September 15, 2009 at 11:57 PM