Where’s a Banana Stand When You Need One?

I am falling hard for author Jess Walter. Last year I read Beautiful Ruins (on recommendation from a Cannonballer!) and loved it. I’ve recommended it to others and they’ve reported love back too. In my head though, Jess Walter looks like Lucille Bluth. He might not think that’s a good thing; I’m sure Jess Walter is a lovely person and Jessica Walter is gorgeous, but Lucille Bluth is an ugly human being. Yet in my head, it’s Lucille 1 typing away, smirking every time some new terrible situation is handed down for our hero to handle. Also, is it weird that I’m imagining the author writing this book and not the events of the book itself?

I digress. It was my turn this month to pick the book club read and I chose The Financial Lives of Poets. I’m happy to report that I loved this book even more. It’s funny, heartbreaking and compelling the whole length of the book.

Matt Prior has no job (his wife knows this), is about to lose the family home (his wife does not know this) and is about to become an accidental pot dealer (his wife definitely doesn’t know this) all while at 7-11 late one night buying a $9 gallon of milk. Understandably, Matt’s life is a mess at this juncture. Two years before the novel starts, Matt quit his job as a financial writer at a newspaper to start a website, a financial website using poetry to report each days’ predictions and figures. Surprisingly, it didn’t take off. Then the housing market crashed and while Matt was able to get his job back at his newspaper, the first round of layoffs came just a few short months later. This is how Matt got to where his is today.

It sounds terrible, but Matt is a funny and charming and I just couldn’t help laughing at the absurd situations he kept finding (and sometimes placing) himself in. I also was rooting for him and his family to get it together and do well. You just can’t help but like this guy and his misplaced ideas. If only he had a banana stand, then things would have been perfect, because we all know there’s always money in the banana stand. Alas, there was none in site.

I’m not entirely sure why I ended up with Arrested Development into this review, it just kind of happened. The next review up is probably going to be Deadly Collection, or as I might end up calling it, “Why I Love Orange is the New Black.”

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