The Financial Lives Of the Poets

thunderstorm. It’s okay, I whisper to Lisa on those nights that I convince her to stay with me. It’s okay. Just keep moving forward. Don’t look back. It’s okay.

Maybe we will be happy again-maybe we’ll even come out of this happier. But I can’t help wondering if we couldn’t be happy in our big old house, with our old nice furniture, with our old second car, with enough money for four movie tickets.

For two ice cream cones.

No, we miss our things.

But we have pockets.

And Lisa and me-we’re okay.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Sam Ligon, Jim Lynch, Dan Butterworth, Sherman Alexie, Dan Spalding and Eric Albrecht for various insights, inspirations and encouragements; to Cal Morgan and Warren Frazier; and most of all to Ralph Walter, Danny Westneat, Som Jordan and all of my dismayed and displaced newspaper friends, whose talent and commitment deserve a better world.

About the Author

JESS WALTER is the author of The Zero, a finalist for the National Book Award; Citizen Vince, a winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel; Land of the Blind; and Over Tumbled Graves, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Also the author of the nonfiction book Ruby Ridge, Walter lives in Spokane, Washington, with his family.

www.jesswalter.com

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