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by Jess Walter
In the winning and utterly original novels Citizen Vince and The Zero, Jess Walter ("a ridiculously talented writer"—New York Times) painted an America all his own: a land of real, flawed, and deeply human characters coping with the anxieties of their times. Now, in his warmest, funniest, and best novel yet, Walter offers a story as real as our own lives: a tale of overstretched accounts, misbegotten schemes, and domestic dreams deferred.
A few years ago, small-time finance journalist Matthew Prior quit his day job to gamble everything on a quixotic notion: a Web site 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 7-Eleven in the middle of the night 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.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/28/2026)
...I can't say enough about how much I loved this story of the WWI trenches and the field of battle as delivered in the brilliant narration by Heyborne. The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter. I gave up on this one because it was not my kind of humor. She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated by Izadora Angel—a very stylistic telling of...
-Anne_Glasgow
"Starred Review. The decision to include snippets of Matt’s poetry in the novel was a risky one, but Walter pulls it off, never resorting to pretension or overused metaphors for life's meltdowns." - Publishers Weekly
"Walter's bitterly funny follow-up to The Zero (2006) could not be more topical in its depiction of a leveraged to-the-hilt culture run amuck, and wiseass Matt makes for a distinctly flawed Everyman running out of chances. Midlife crisis farce laced with some larger truths about how we live now." - Kirkus Reviews
"In addition to the snarky sendup of modern life, he provides a surprisingly heartwarming portrait of a good man trying to find his way back home." - Booklist
"Prior is a zany, foul-mouthed Willy Loman in search of a stimulus package, and readers looking for some humor with their layoff notices will certainly relate." - Library Journal
This information about The Financial Lives of the Poets was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo by Rajah Bose
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.
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