New York, NY: Harper (2010)

As new in paperback.

“The ultimate something-for-everyone-don’t-skip-must-read” (Sara Nelson, The Daily Beast) novel of the year: Jess Walter’s hysterically funny—and painfully timely—tale of one man’s attempt to save his family from economic disaster

A few years ago, small-time finance journalist Matthew Prior quit his day job and gambled everything on a quixotic idea: a website devoted to financial journalism in the form of blank verse. When his big idea—and his wife’s eBay resale business—ends with a whimper (and a garage full of unwanted figurines), they borrow and borrow, whistling past the graveyard of their uncertain dreams.

One morning Matt wakes up to find himself jobless, hobbled with debt, spying on his wife’s online flirtation, and six days away from losing his home. Is this really how things were supposed to end up for me, he wonders: staying up all night worried, driving to the local 7-Eleven to get milk for his boys, and falling in with two local degenerates after they offer him a hit of high-grade marijuana?

Or, he thinks, could this be the solution to all my problems?

Following Matt in his weeklong quest to save his marriage, his sanity, and his dreams, The Financial Lives of the Poets is a hysterical, heartfelt novel about how we can reach the edge of ruin—and how we can begin to make our way back.