Synopses & Reviews
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 is Win 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.
Review
"Delivering virulent social satire with a velvet, humanitarian touch, McPhee's timely send-up deftly parodies the fallout from misplaced priorities." Booklist
Review
"A skilled, always gripping satire of our foolish age." Joseph O'Neill, author of Netherland
Review
"Martha McPhee's fourth novel wouldn't be so funny if it didn't ring so true. As the narrator of Dear Money, India Palmer has published four novels....Though it would be a mistake to reduce India to an authorial stand-in, the delicious irony of McPhee's novel is that it deserves to be her own lottery winner, the breakout book that attracts a popular readership exceeding those drawn by the critical notices and prize nominations for her earlier work." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"You know the George Bernard Shaw play: Higgins bets Pickering that he can turn flower-selling street waif Eliza into a well-dressed lady who speaks proper English.
This time the setting is New York and Maine. The 'flower girl' is India Palmer, a 38-year-old novelist with four critically acclaimed books to her credit, none of which has sold more than 5,000 copies. She's married to Theodor, a moderately successful sculptor. Billionaire banker Win Johns, the Higgins stand-in, bets his boss that he can turn starving artist India into a successful bond trader. To this mix Martha McPhee adds a riches-to-rags story: Family friend Will, a successful banker, wants to abandon his Wall Street life to become a writer and inherit India's life as starving artist.
In her new novel, Dear Money, McPhee tenders a funny, generous piece of social commentary, populated by a cast of characters who are amusingly, painfully human." Martha McPhee, The Boston Globe (read the entire National Book Critic's Circle review)
Synopsis
A Pygmalion story about a novelist who is transformed into a bond trader of mortgage-backed securities by a Wall Street tycoon in the heady days of the gilded age
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About the Author
The author of four previous novels and a finalist for the National Book Award, Martha McPhee lives in New York City with her children and husband, the poet and writer Mark Svenvold. A few years ago, when a legendary bond trader claimed he could transform her into a booming Wall Street success, she toyed with the notion — but wrote Dear Money instead.