Jess Walter

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The Angel of Rome

The Cold Millions

Beautiful Ruins

The Financial Lives of the Poets

We Live in Water

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

These stories are very, very good. If you like to read, you'll like this book

A witty and sobering snapshot of recession-era America

Wildly entertaining and thought-provoking

Jess Walter has impressive command of the short story...Since 13 stories should be plenty for a collection, maybe the best compliment we might pay the author is to object that this book is too short

A more expansive, wittier Raymond Carver

Clever, original and a little dark

There's no sudden resolution, but there's enough wit to help you get through the messy bits

A collection of punchy stories . . . Sold and sold

Darkly amusing . . . Suffused with caustic wit, quirky descriptions and sharp details. We Live In Water never falls short of being highly engaging

We Live In Water is a world of lost fathers and redemptive con artists, of personal struggles and broken men. 
 
In 'Thief', a blue-collar worker turns unlikely detective to find out which of his kids is stealing from the family holiday fund. 'Anything Helps' sees a homeless man try to raise money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book; and in 'Virgo', a newspaper editor attempts to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. 
 
We Live in Water is a wildly original, brilliantly realized contemplation of our times.

From Jess Walter, the bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins, comes We Live in Water - a darkly funny, utterly compelling collection of stories about the American family. 
 
We Live in Water brings to vivid life a world of lost fathers and redemptive con men, of personal struggles and diminished dreams, a world marked by the wry wit and generosity of spirit that has made Jess Walter one of America's most talked-about writers. 
 
In 'Thief', a blue-collar worker turns unlikely detective to find out which of his kids is stealing from the family vacation fund. In 'We Live in Water', a lawyer returns to a corrupt North Idaho town to find the father who disappeared thirty years earlier. In 'Anything Helps', a homeless man has to 'go to cardboard' to raise enough money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book. In 'Virgo', a local newspaper editor tries to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. The final story transforms slyly from a portrait of Walter's hometown into a moving contemplation of our times. 
 
'A ridiculously talented writer' The New York Times 
 
'One of my favourite young American writers' Nick Hornby 
 
'Darkly funny, sneakily sad, these stories are very, very good' Publisher's Weekly 
 
'A witty and sobering snapshot of recession-era America' Kirkus

Jess Walter is the author of six novels, including The Financial Lives of the Poets and The Cold Millions. Beautiful Ruins was a New York Times bestseller, and We Live in Water was one of Barack Obama's books of 2019. Jess Walter lives in Spokane, Washington with his family.

We Live in Water

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