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textpublishing's review
5.0
I was commuting between two forms of dementia, two circles of hell. Neither point nor meaning to Alzheimer’s, nor to corporate life, unless you counted the creation of shareholder value.
Such is the predicament of Cath in Kate Jennings’ much-acclaimed 2002 novel of Wall Street recklessness and the torments of Alzheimers.
Concise, uncompromising and eerily prophetic, this is the latest addition to the Text Classics.
Read Gideon Haigh’s excellent introduction, ‘The Devil Whooping it Up’, on the Text Number 3 chiller blog.
‘This is a unique book by an extraordinary writer, the great city illuminated from within. Kate Jennings brings all her powers of pace and tone to bear in a novel that is humane and unsparing; witty, unsettling, and wildly intelligent. I know of no other voice that so conveys the contemporary workplace in its vulnerability and its denaturing, and its difficult morality.’
Shirley Hazzard, author of The Transit of Venus
‘An engrossing, cautionary tale for the twenty-first century…with unsparing rapier wit.’
Philadelphia Enquirer
‘A work of considerable formal beauty.’
Age
‘The finest novel I’ve read this year…Don’t let its brevity fool you. Moral Hazard is a big book in the truest sense of the word.’
Salon.com
‘Written in spare and starkly honest prose, this novel foreshadows the recent accounting scandals at Enron, World-Com and other companies, and shows that even in the midst of corruption and tragedy, individuals can stick to their beliefs.’
Wall Street Journal
‘Jennings is a writer of substance—and Moral Hazard is substantial writing.’
Australian
‘Compelling reading; Cath’s thorny humour adapts well to both terminal illness and terminal greed.’
New York Observer
‘An insider’s view of the city without the spin; a steely, unsentimental vision delivered with a poet’s sure touch.’
Bulletin
‘An extraordinary novel: pleasurable and powerful, mordant and harrowing.’
New Statesman
‘A piercing novel, gleaming with facets of hard-won knowledge, polished by experience and a keen intelligence.’
Publisher's Weekly
‘Moral Hazard is a rare book in the way it looks not just at our contemporary globalised financial world, but more widely at work, our relationship to it, and the moral choices we make in work and in life.’
Whispering Gums
Such is the predicament of Cath in Kate Jennings’ much-acclaimed 2002 novel of Wall Street recklessness and the torments of Alzheimers.
Concise, uncompromising and eerily prophetic, this is the latest addition to the Text Classics.
Read Gideon Haigh’s excellent introduction, ‘The Devil Whooping it Up’, on the Text Number 3 chiller blog.
‘This is a unique book by an extraordinary writer, the great city illuminated from within. Kate Jennings brings all her powers of pace and tone to bear in a novel that is humane and unsparing; witty, unsettling, and wildly intelligent. I know of no other voice that so conveys the contemporary workplace in its vulnerability and its denaturing, and its difficult morality.’
Shirley Hazzard, author of The Transit of Venus
‘An engrossing, cautionary tale for the twenty-first century…with unsparing rapier wit.’
Philadelphia Enquirer
‘A work of considerable formal beauty.’
Age
‘The finest novel I’ve read this year…Don’t let its brevity fool you. Moral Hazard is a big book in the truest sense of the word.’
Salon.com
‘Written in spare and starkly honest prose, this novel foreshadows the recent accounting scandals at Enron, World-Com and other companies, and shows that even in the midst of corruption and tragedy, individuals can stick to their beliefs.’
Wall Street Journal
‘Jennings is a writer of substance—and Moral Hazard is substantial writing.’
Australian
‘Compelling reading; Cath’s thorny humour adapts well to both terminal illness and terminal greed.’
New York Observer
‘An insider’s view of the city without the spin; a steely, unsentimental vision delivered with a poet’s sure touch.’
Bulletin
‘An extraordinary novel: pleasurable and powerful, mordant and harrowing.’
New Statesman
‘A piercing novel, gleaming with facets of hard-won knowledge, polished by experience and a keen intelligence.’
Publisher's Weekly
‘Moral Hazard is a rare book in the way it looks not just at our contemporary globalised financial world, but more widely at work, our relationship to it, and the moral choices we make in work and in life.’
Whispering Gums
wtb_michael's review
dark
emotional
funny
fast-paced
4.25
Scathing and sad novel about alzheimers, wall street and patching together a life - the same kind of episodic structure as Snake, but a very different book
sarziebear's review
funny
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
tasmanian_bibliophile's review
4.0
‘He had forgotten to remember.’
Cath takes a job as a speechwriter on Wall Street. She’s not there by choice: she’s there because she needs to earn money to try to look after her husband, Bailey, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. So, Cath’s world now encompasses two nightmares. She is working in the bizarre world of high finance where reality is a foreign country, and living in the sad world of reality where her husband Bailey becomes a foreigner. How can Cath survive? Both nightmares contain moral hazards for Cath: how can she be true to herself, and take the best care of Bailey? How can she negotiate the outcomes she can live with?
In fewer than two hundred pages, Ms Jennings covers the slippery moral ground of high finance, where the expected ends always justify the means, and the heartbreaking reality of living with a loved one with Alzheimer’s. What is right, and what is moral? What choices does Cath have? How can she survive?
I found this novel intensely thought provoking, and well worth reading. Not so much the high finance side: I have low expectations of morality there, and am highly cynical. But as I grow older, and more aware of the impact of Alzheimer’s I think more about the options available. If I was Cath, what would I do?
I understand that this novel is in part autobiographical: Ms Jennings did spend some time working as a speech writer on Wall Street, and her husband died as a consequence of complications of Alzheimer’s in 1999.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Cath takes a job as a speechwriter on Wall Street. She’s not there by choice: she’s there because she needs to earn money to try to look after her husband, Bailey, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. So, Cath’s world now encompasses two nightmares. She is working in the bizarre world of high finance where reality is a foreign country, and living in the sad world of reality where her husband Bailey becomes a foreigner. How can Cath survive? Both nightmares contain moral hazards for Cath: how can she be true to herself, and take the best care of Bailey? How can she negotiate the outcomes she can live with?
In fewer than two hundred pages, Ms Jennings covers the slippery moral ground of high finance, where the expected ends always justify the means, and the heartbreaking reality of living with a loved one with Alzheimer’s. What is right, and what is moral? What choices does Cath have? How can she survive?
I found this novel intensely thought provoking, and well worth reading. Not so much the high finance side: I have low expectations of morality there, and am highly cynical. But as I grow older, and more aware of the impact of Alzheimer’s I think more about the options available. If I was Cath, what would I do?
I understand that this novel is in part autobiographical: Ms Jennings did spend some time working as a speech writer on Wall Street, and her husband died as a consequence of complications of Alzheimer’s in 1999.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
ellafel's review against another edition
sad
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
thewellreadrunner's review against another edition
3.0
The Alzheimer's side of the story was heartbreaking. But the financial side was so filled with Wall Street jargon, it was hard to keep my interest. I see how the two stories were supposed to overlap, I appreciate what she was trying to do...but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it was written for those of us in, say, the education field. Ha.
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