On Wall Street, reflects Cath, women are about as welcome as fleas in a sleeping bag. Funny, liberal and left-leaning, she is an unlikely candidate to be writing speeches on derivatives in a cubicle in a Manhattan tower, 'putting words in the mouths of plutocrats deeply suspicious of metaphors and words of more than two syllables'. She finds herself on Wall Street because she needs serious money. After ten good years, her beloved older husband Bailey is suffering from Alzheimer's. So begins Cath's journey into two nightmare worlds. By day she deals with the topsy-turvy logic and ingrown personalities at work in high finance; by night she has to watch the slow disintegration of the man she loves. In between, she must stop herself from falling apart. Friendship with Mike, a colleague and incognito socialist, helps her survive the assault course of the workplace with its vicious office politics. But as the money markets hurtle towards financial meltdown, Cath faces personal disaster and a moral hazard that she cannot ignore. Kate Jennings' prose is lean yet rich in unexpected, telling detail. Tense, taut and compulsively readable, MORAL HAZARD is peopled by extraordinary characters and informed by a mordant, witty intelligence.

"Sharp, spare, and utterly unsentimental, Kate Jennings' Moral Hazard lays out, in its meticulously composed 175 pages, the definitive treatment of contemporary workplace alienation....Jennings strikes exactly the right balance between satire and compassion, seeing her characters as flawed human beings and yet rendering them with scalpel-like precision....The wittiest stroke of Moral Hazard is that Jennings understands the insularity of an industry that commands so much money, power and influence....The sections on Cath's dealing with her husband's disease...imprint themselves on your mind with the clarity and depth of an indelible hurt. Along with Doris Lessing's The Sweetest Dream, this is the finest novel I've read this year. The gift of both books is that they are deeply personal and yet transcend the personal, elucidating a moral vision of the world. Don't let its brevity fool you. Moral Hazard is a big book in the truest sense of the word." Charles Taylor, Salon.com

"Powerful...darkly, disconcertingly comic....Jennings' disturbing and memorable novel builds quietly to its thought-provoking climax." London Sunday Times

On Wall Street, reflects Cath, women are about as welcome as fleas in a sleeping bag. Funny, liberal and left-leaning, she is an unlikely candidate to be writing speeches on derivatives in a Manhattan tower, 'putting words in the mouths of plutocrats deeply suspicious of metaphors and words of more than two syllables'. She finds herself on Wall Street because she needs serious money. After ten good years, her beloved older husband Bailey is suffering from Alzheimer's.So begins Cath's journey into two nightmare worlds. By day she deals with the topsy-turvy logic and ingrown personalities at work in high finance; by night she has to watch the slow disintegration of the man she loves. In between, she must stop herself from falling apart. As the money markets hurtle towards financial meltdown, Cath faces personal disaster and a moral hazard that she cannot ignore.Kate Jennings' prose is lean yet rich in unexpected, telling detail. Tense, taut and compulsively readable, Moral Hazard is peopled by extraordinary characters and informed by a mordant, witty intelligence.

Jennings pens a darkly witty novel, taut as a wire, that pits love and loyalty against Wall Street. Print features.

Kate Jennings, who grew up in rural Australia, has lived in New York City since 1979.She is the author of the internationally acclaimed novel Snake, as well as a number of volumes of poetry, essays, and stories. During the nineties she worked as an executive speech writer at several Wall Street investment banks.