Stories of financial collapse can be illuminating at any time, but especially during times of financial collapse. Sometimes a writer of fiction seems to predict the present with such clarity that it leads one to suspect he has a crystal ball; other books reflect on the current times by looking at previous disasters. Three recent novels have found much acclaim for their discussion, often humorous, of economic malaise:
Union Atlantic
Union Atlantic:
Adam Haslett has said in interviews that he finished his debut novel, Union Atlantic, the week that Lehman Brothers fell from grace, so he cannot have anticipated how timely its subject would become. The novel features a man and a woman arguing over a piece of land in the rural Massachusetts town of Finden. Doug Fanning has just run up the value of the bank over which he presides and wants to show off some of his newly earned money, so he purchases a plot of land and builds a large house on it, but Charlotte Graves believes that she actually owns the land, which once belonged to her grandfather. Fanning’s bank begins to founder and falls under the regulation of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is headed by Graves’s brother. Haslett is also the author of a well-received story collection: You Are Not a Stranger Here was a Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist.
Model Home
Model Home:
Though Model Home by Eric Puchner (whose short story collection Music Through the Floor was a 2005 standout) is set in the 1980s, it clearly comments on today as well. With a rotating set of viewpoints reminiscent of The Corrections, Puchner limns economic and emotional and familial collapse through the eyes of the members of the Ziller family. Patriarch Warren Ziller has sunk all their money into a housing development in the California desert, only to learn that there is a toxic dump being developed next door. Meanwhile, disaffected daughter Lyle is sleeping with a guard who works at their gated community; older son Dustin finds himself strangely attracted to his girlfriend’s unstable sister; younger son Jonas is obsessed with a local girl who has disappeared; and mother Camille suspects her husband is having an affair.
The Financial Lives of the Poets
The Financial Lives of the Poets:
Matt Prior, narrator of The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walters, makes an even more foolish investment than real estate: He bets the farm on poetfolio.com, a website that offers visitors financial wisdom in the form of poetry. The venture goes belly-up at the same time that the economy does, so Prior’s old newspaper reporting job is no longer an option, and his house is soon to be in foreclosure. His wife has fared equally badly on the Internet, where she attempted an eBay resale business, and has rekindled an acquaintance with an old boyfriend on Facebook. His sons are in trouble in school, and his father loses all his money as well and is forced to move in with them. Prior resorts to drug dealing to try to make ends meet, but he finds a way to muck up even that seemingly no-fail venture.
- Natalie Danford is the author of Inheritance, a novel published by St. Martin’s Press. She is also co-editor of the annual Best New American Voices anthology series, which introduces emerging writers. An experienced freelance writer and book critic, Natalie has published articles and reviews in People, The Los Angeles Times, Salon, and many other publications.
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