Walter Jess

Jess Walter's "Beautiful Ruins" is a gorgeous, glamorous novel set in 1960s Italy and a modern Hollywood studio. The story begins in 1962. Somewhere on a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and views an apparition: a beautiful woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away in Hollywood, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot searching for the woman he last saw at his hotel fifty years before. Gloriously inventive, funny, tender and constantly surprising, "Beautiful Ruins" is a novel full of fabulous and yet very flawed people, all of them striving towards another sort of life, a future that is both delightful and yet, tantalizingly, seems just out of reach.

From the author of the bestselling Beautiful Ruins comes The Financial Lives of Poets - a brilliantly funny novel about a man who, in an attempt to save himself, may destroy everything he loves. Meet Matt Prior. He's about to lose his job, his house, his wife, and maybe his sanity too. Financial journalist Matt quit his job to set up a website which couldn't fail. Only now he's woken up to the biggest crisis since the Great Crash, and it has. He's got six days to save his house. It's hard to focus when your wife's having an online affair with her childhood sweetheart, but there are children to think about...So when he gets hold of some high-grade dope and finds he can sell a piece on at a profit, he begins to think this might be his salvation. A fabulously funny, heartfelt novel about how we can skate close to the edge of ruin - and pull back. "A beautifully laid-back exultation of the human connections that make life worth living". (Metro). "Ecstatically funny and unusually big-hearted". (Financial Times). "It made me laugh more than any other book I've read this year". (Nick Hornby). Jess Walter is the author of six novels, His latest novel, Beautiful Ruins, was a New York Times bestseller. Jess Walter lives in Spokane, Washington with his family.

From Jess Walter, the bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins, comes We Live in Water - a darkly funny, utterly compelling collection of stories about the American family. We Live in Water brings to vivid life a world of lost fathers and redemptive con men, of personal struggles and diminished dreams, a world marked by the wry wit and generosity of spirit that has made Jess Walter one of America's most talked-about writers. In 'Thief', a blue-collar worker turns unlikely detective to find out which of his kids is stealing from the family vacation fund. In 'We Live in Water', a lawyer returns to a corrupt North Idaho town to find the father who disappeared thirty years earlier. In 'Anything Helps', a homeless man has to 'go to cardboard' to raise enough money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book. In 'Virgo', a local newspaper editor tries to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. The final story transforms slyly from a portrait of Walter's hometown into a moving contemplation of our times. "A ridiculously talented writer". (The New York Times). "One of my favourite young American writers". (Nick Hornby). "Darkly funny, sneakily sad, these stories are very, very good". (Publisher's Weekly). "A witty and sobering snapshot of recession-era America". (Kirkus). Jess Walter is the author of six novels, including The Financial Lives of the Poets, published by Penguin. Beautiful Ruins was a number one New York Times bestseller. We Live in Water is his first collection of short fiction. Jess Walter lives in Spokane, Washington with his family. He is currently writing for Radio 4.

Román, ktorý uchvátil čitateľov v 28 krajinách sveta a patril v roku 2014 k najpredávanejším v USA. Píše sa rok 1962. V ospalej rybárskej dedinke na pobreží Ligúrskeho mora žije mladý Talian Pasquale so svojou matkou a hašterivou tetou. Jediné, čo zdedil po otcovi, je chátrajúci hotel a azúrové oči, krásne ako more pod jeho hotelom. Sníva, že keď vybuduje pláž a tenisové ihrisko, turisti, najmä zámožní Američania, sa k nemu budú len tak hrnúť. Jedného dňa, vpláva do zátoky loď s krásnou americkou herečkou, ktorá je chorá a myslí si, že umiera. Pasquale unesený jej krásou sa všemožne stará o jej pohodlie. Dokonca sa vyberie aj do Ríma, kde sa práve nakrúca slávny film Kleopatra, aby donútil muža, ktorý ju opustil vrátiť sa k nej a postarať sa o ňu. S herečkou prichádza do Porto Vergogna iný život, svet zasľúbenej ďalekej Ameriky, a s ním aj večne pijúci Richard Burton. A o päťdesiat rokov neskôr, v Hollywoode, v srdci filmového priemyslu sa v štúdiu slávneho producenta Michaela Deana objaví starý Talian pátrajúci po tajomnej žene. Jess Walter majstrovsky rozohráva životné osudy niekoľkých nezabudnuteľných postáv, ktorých osudy sa vzájomne prepletajú: romantický Pasquale, sklamaná herečka Dee Morayová, ktorá zanechá sľubne sa rozvíjajúcu filmovú kariéru, filmový producent, ktorý plastickými operáciami bojuje so starobou, jeho mladá asistentka, ktorá sa nevie zmieriť s úpadkom filmovej tvorby, vojnový veterán, ktorý v Taliansku píše neexistujúci román alebo samotný Richard Burton, ktorý často zahorel vášňou k filmovým hviezdičkám a potom ich opúšťa. Cesta za snami mnohých týchto postáv ich obrala o všetky ilúzie až na konci života zostali z nich len „krásne trosky“. Jess Walter patrí medzi popredných súčasných amerických spisovateľov. Jeho dielo bolo preložené do 28 jazykov a získalo viacero ocenení kritiky aj uznanie čitateľov. Je držiteľom Pulitzerovej ceny a dva razy bol nominovaný na Národnú cenu.

Hollywood történetének legnagyobb románca. Richard Burton és Liz Taylor istenek voltak, és mint az istenek általában, elviselhetetlenek. Egy apró halászfaluba húsz év körüli, meseszép amerikai lány érkezett, és a kíváncsi, gavalléros természetű fogadós egy idő után már nem tudja nézni vendége boldogtalanságát: Rómába megy, hogy megkeresse azt a férfit, aki a lányt felültette. A Kleopátra című, hatalmas statisztériát mozgató hollywoodi vállalkozás producere mára idős ember, de végtelenül megrendül, amikor egy látogatója felidézi a hajdani eseménysort. A Richard Burton után tudakozódó vidéki fogadós groteszk kalandjai révén fény derül arra, hogy a sztárszínész és Elizabeth Taylor heves románcának hullámai sodorták a lányt a kis faluba. Minden szerelmi történet tengerpart: látszanak bennük a folyton egymásnak rohanó hullámok, és a zord, part menti sziklák. "Több mint húsz nyelven olvasható." (New York Times bestseller) "Tüneményesen tehetséges író." (The New York Times) "Bravúros, magas feszültségű történetmondás. Szívbe markoló pátosz és komikum." (Esquire: Az év könyve 2012) "Igazi csoda." (NPR Fresh Air: Az év könyve 2012) "Nagy álmok, elveszett szerelmek. Mély vágyakozás: csaknem a tökély." (Salon)

'A monument to crazy love. Magic' New York Times 'The actress arrived in his village the only way one could come directly . . .' In spring 1962 American actress Dee Moray's boat motors into an Italian bay and the life of hotelier Pasquale Tursi. Dee - fleeing a film set, claiming to be dying and desperately awaiting her lover - throws herself on Pasquale's generous mercy. Fifty years later Pasquale lands in Hollywood, sporting a fedora and seeking a long-forgotten actress. Why he's come, what happened to Dee in Italy and, later, LA, are questions that Beautiful Ruins answers in the most surprising and wonderfully entertaining manner. 'Exhilarating. Very, very funny' The Times