Dear Money

By Martha McPhee

In this Pygmalion tale of a novelist turned bond trader, Martha McPhee brings to life the greed and riotous wealth of New York during the heady days of the second gilded age. India Palmer, living the cash-strapped existence of the writer, is visiting wealthy friends in Maine when a yellow biplane swoops down from the clear blue sky to bring a stranger into her life, one who will change everything.The stranger isWin Johns, a swaggering and intellectually bored trader of mortgage- backed securities. Charmed by India’s intelligence, humor, and inquisitive nature—and aware of her near-desperate financial situation—Win poses a proposition: “Give me eighteen months and I’ll make you a world-class bond trader.” Shedding her artist’s life with surprising ease, India embarks on a raucous ride to the top of the income chain, leveraging herself with crumbling real estate, never once looking back . . .Or does she?  With a light-handed irony that is by turns as measured as Claire Messud’s and as biting as Tom Wolfe’s, Martha McPhee tells the classic American story of people reinventing themselves, unaware of the price they must pay for their transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780547487205

Martha McPhee

Martha McPhee is the author of the novels An Elegant Woman, Bright Angel Time, Gorgeous Lies, L’America, and Dear Money. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Gorgeous Lies was a finalist for the National Book Award. She teaches fiction at Hofstra University and lives in New York City.

Reviews for Dear Money

[mariealt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Do you ever think about tulips?" he asked. "I think about tulips all the time. My mind is filled with tulips, the colors and variations."

I started this book on Easter, on a two hour drive: only about a chapter or two. I had to finish the last sixty or so pages tonight, because the lending period ended tonight.

And that was very hard because this is a suspenseful book. I just cared so much for the narrator and everyone her life touched. I wanted her to make the 'right' choice, or at least end well...and yet this whole thing takes place just before the economic meltdown. It's kind of devastating emotionally.

This isn't a novel of events or actions. It's an emotional arc, set, of course, on the dramatic background of high finance Wall Street.

[ccayne_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I debated between 4 and 5 stars and decided on 5 because I'm still thinking about the book. It's told from the viewpoint of India Palmer, a writer, who enters the world of bond trading on a dare. It's a very limited viewpoint which may be a weak point but that was the author's choice and she remains true to it. It was very well written and grappled with the value of money - how it motivates, what we want from it, expectations and longings. It was a fascinating look at money and art - the value of each and how they affect each other.