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Shop nowDear Money
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Learn moreIn 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 a novelist, 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, Johns 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, and she never once looks 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.
Martha McPhee is the author of several previous novels and a finalist for the National Book Award. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker and Zoetrope. 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. She lives in New York City with her children and husband, the poet and writer Mark Svenvold.
Kate Reading is the recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and has been named by AudioFile magazine as a “Voice of the Century,” as well as the Best Voice in Science Fiction & Fantasy in 2008 and 2009 and Best Voice in Biography & Culture in 2010. She has narrated works by authors as Jane Austen, Robert Jordan, Edith Wharton, and Sophie Kinsella. Reading has performed at numerous theaters in Washington D.C. and received a Helen Hayes Award for her performance in Aunt Dan and Lemon. AudioFile magazine reports that, "With subtle control of characters and sense of pacing, Kate’s performances are a consistent pleasure."
Reviews
“I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t put a book down. I read Dear Money in cars, in waiting rooms, even at a rest stop on the turnpike. I read whole passages out loud to my husband. Martha McPhee is a wickedly good social observer, a writer of beautiful, lyrical prose, and a consummate storyteller. This is a very smart novel that unpacks small surprises and pleasures on every single page.”
“Martha McPhee writes with verve and uncanny insight about those recent, heady dreams of easy wealth. This New York Pygmalian story takes us beyond what we thought we knew about money and art and all their precarious alliances, in an adventure that recreates the city’s temptations, both material and idealistic. Dear Money is conceived with such cutting precision and grace, it will make readers think of a contemporary Edith Wharton, but there’s a dark mischief here too, shades of Andy Warhol. Full of beautiful, unflinching sentences, this is an uncompromising, brave, brilliant story.”
“Wouldn’t be so funny if it didn't ring so true…India continues to engage the reader’s empathy, even affection, as she forsakes literary high-mindedness for filthy lucre.”
“Martha McPhee’s fourth novel wouldn’t be so funny if it didn't ring so true…McPhee has a lot of fun with a couple of archetypes—a Pygmalion transformation of the novelist into a financial high roller and a ‘city mouse/country mouse’ exchange of ambitions—but what makes this novel work so well is that India continues to engage the reader’s empathy, even affection, as she forsakes literary high-mindedness for filthy lucre.”
“Although no one can profess to comprehend the complexities of the current economic quagmire, McPhee dishes its jargon with all the aplomb of someone who TiVos CNBC. Delivering virulent social satire with a velvet, humanitarian touch, McPhee’s timely send-up deftly parodies the fallout from misplaced priorities.”
“McPhee plays with the notion of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ in an entertaining and ironic way.”
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