Jess Walter
Author of Beautiful Ruins
About the Author
Jess Walter was born on July 20, 1965. He graduated from Eastern Washington University. Before becoming an author, he worked as a journalist. His work has appeared in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. He has written one nonfiction book and several novels. show more His works include Every Knee Shall Bow, Over Tumbled Graves, The Zero, and Beautiful Ruins. His novel, Citizen Vince, won the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel. He was the co-author of Christopher Darden's 1996 bestseller In Contempt. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Jess Walter
Zo ver heen 4 copies
Associated Works
You and Me and the Devil Makes Three (Esquire's Fiction for Men, #1) (2012) — Contributor — 7 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1965-07-20
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Eastern Washington University
- Occupations
- reporter
novelist - Organizations
- The Spokesman-Review
- Awards and honors
- Edgar Allan Poe Award Best Novel, 2005: Citizen Vince
National Book Award Best Novel Finalist, 2006: The Zero
Washington State Book Award in Fiction Finalist, 2006: The Zero
Washington State Book Award in Fiction Finalist, 2007: Citizen Vince
Washington State Book Award in Fiction Finalist, 2011: The Financial Lives of the Poets
New York Times Notable Book, 2001: Over Tumbled Graves (show all 12)
PEN USA Literary Nonfiction Award, 1996: Every Knee Shall Bow
PEN USA Literary Award, 2007: The Zero
LA Times Book Prize, 2007: The Zero
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, 2007: The Zero
Time Magazine's #2 Novel Of The Year, 2009: The Financial Lives of the Poets
New York Times Bestseller, 2012: Beautiful Ruins - Short biography
- Home page: http://www.jesswalter.com/index.htmFrom author's site: http://www.jesswalter.com/bio.htm : Jess Walter is the author of THE ZERO, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award and CITIZEN VINCE, winner of the 2005 Edgar Award for best novel, as well as two other novels and a nonfiction book. He's won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and has been a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, the PEN USA Literary Prize, in both fiction and nonfiction, the ITW Thriller of the Year and he was part of a team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in spot news journalism. His books have been New York Times, Washington Post and NPR best books of the year and have been published in twenty countries.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Spokane, Washington, USA
- Places of residence
- Spokane, Washington, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Spokane, Washington, USA
Members
Reviews
Rhys Kinnick, a former environmental journalist before his foundering newspaper offered him a buyout in 2015, had been living off the grid outside of Spokane, Washington for the past seven years. He decamped from society after punching his son-in-law Shane in the face during a tense Thanksgiving dinner his daughter Bethany hosted in 2016. Rhys couldn’t take Shane’s crazy, conspiracy-laden White Christian nationalism anymore, and then decided he couldn’t take the direction of life in show more general anymore. Kinnick felt helpless: “the sense that, just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, it not only got worse, but exponentially more insane.” He mused, “At some point, you look around, and think, I don't belong here anymore. I don't want to have anything to do with any of this."
But Rhys’s priorities suddenly changed when his 13-year-old granddaughter Leah and 6-year-old grandson Asher showed up at his door one day. Their mother Bethany had herself run off, and left a note asking a neighbor to deliver the kids to Rhys.
Kinnick found out the family had actually been living nearby, in Spokane, but Shane wanted them to move to Idaho where he was a member of the Army of the Lord, part of the Church of the Blessed Fire. Shane also wanted 13-year-old Leah to be betrothed to the 19-year-old pastor’s son David Jr.; they could be married in Idaho when Leah turned 16.
Rhys, confronted with his grandchildren abandoned on his doorstep, and learning about the plans made for them, experienced a sense of concern and responsibility in him that he thought had dried up long ago.
Leah asked her grandfather why he had “dropped out” in the first place. How could he explain it to her? He thought:
“As a journalist, as a rationalist, Kinnick had come to terms with the fact that 20 percent of his countrymen were greedy assholes. But then, in 2016, the greedy assholes joined with the idiot assholes and the paranoid assholes in what turned out to be an unbeatable constituency, Kinnick realizing that the asshole ceiling was much higher than he’d thought, perhaps half the country. Whatever the number, it was more than he could bear. Especially when they were in his own family.
. . .
. . . Whatever their motivation, for Kinnick, it was all just part of a long sad cultural slide that he’d had the misfortune of witnessing firsthand (celebrity entertainment bleeding into government, cable TV eroding newspapers, information collapsing into a huge Internet-size black hole of bad ideas, bald-faced lies, and bullshit, until the literal worst person in America got elected president). There was inside of Kinnick an emptiness that felt like depression.”
When members of Shane’s Army of the Lord showed up and forcibly took away the children, Kinnick sprang into action; he had to get them back at any cost. He enlisted the help of Chuck, the ex-cop-ex-boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend, and Chuck began by tutoring Rhys in the ways of this new world:
“‘Okay, you’ve got fifteen rounds in the magazine. Now I’m going to show you how to load one of those rounds, how to cock it, how to turn off the safety, and how to fire it. But we are not going to fire it, are we? . . . Chuck’s voice got cheerier. ‘Any questions?’
The high note seemed so insane that Kinnick could only laugh. Any questions? How about: What the hell? White Nationalist goons stealing children from church parking lots? Rural sheriffs telling him to go pound sand? A manic ex-cop showing him how to shoot people in the front pocket? Was this just how people behaved now? Is this what the world had come to? Seven years in the woods only to emerge and find everything had gotten crazier?”
What follows is part crazy hijinks, part a frightening look at where this country is heading with “shithead soldier/cop-wannabes” terrorizing people in the name of religion, and perhaps most consequentially, part a touching paean to the power of connection to combat despair in a world gone mad.
Evaluation: This book is simultaneously scary, laugh-out-loud funny, and right on point politically. The characters are endearing - even, surprisingly, the less-than-sympathetic ones, and the writing is clever and engaging. It would make an excellent book club book for discussion, and a great movie! show less
But Rhys’s priorities suddenly changed when his 13-year-old granddaughter Leah and 6-year-old grandson Asher showed up at his door one day. Their mother Bethany had herself run off, and left a note asking a neighbor to deliver the kids to Rhys.
Kinnick found out the family had actually been living nearby, in Spokane, but Shane wanted them to move to Idaho where he was a member of the Army of the Lord, part of the Church of the Blessed Fire. Shane also wanted 13-year-old Leah to be betrothed to the 19-year-old pastor’s son David Jr.; they could be married in Idaho when Leah turned 16.
Rhys, confronted with his grandchildren abandoned on his doorstep, and learning about the plans made for them, experienced a sense of concern and responsibility in him that he thought had dried up long ago.
Leah asked her grandfather why he had “dropped out” in the first place. How could he explain it to her? He thought:
“As a journalist, as a rationalist, Kinnick had come to terms with the fact that 20 percent of his countrymen were greedy assholes. But then, in 2016, the greedy assholes joined with the idiot assholes and the paranoid assholes in what turned out to be an unbeatable constituency, Kinnick realizing that the asshole ceiling was much higher than he’d thought, perhaps half the country. Whatever the number, it was more than he could bear. Especially when they were in his own family.
. . .
. . . Whatever their motivation, for Kinnick, it was all just part of a long sad cultural slide that he’d had the misfortune of witnessing firsthand (celebrity entertainment bleeding into government, cable TV eroding newspapers, information collapsing into a huge Internet-size black hole of bad ideas, bald-faced lies, and bullshit, until the literal worst person in America got elected president). There was inside of Kinnick an emptiness that felt like depression.”
When members of Shane’s Army of the Lord showed up and forcibly took away the children, Kinnick sprang into action; he had to get them back at any cost. He enlisted the help of Chuck, the ex-cop-ex-boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend, and Chuck began by tutoring Rhys in the ways of this new world:
“‘Okay, you’ve got fifteen rounds in the magazine. Now I’m going to show you how to load one of those rounds, how to cock it, how to turn off the safety, and how to fire it. But we are not going to fire it, are we? . . . Chuck’s voice got cheerier. ‘Any questions?’
The high note seemed so insane that Kinnick could only laugh. Any questions? How about: What the hell? White Nationalist goons stealing children from church parking lots? Rural sheriffs telling him to go pound sand? A manic ex-cop showing him how to shoot people in the front pocket? Was this just how people behaved now? Is this what the world had come to? Seven years in the woods only to emerge and find everything had gotten crazier?”
What follows is part crazy hijinks, part a frightening look at where this country is heading with “shithead soldier/cop-wannabes” terrorizing people in the name of religion, and perhaps most consequentially, part a touching paean to the power of connection to combat despair in a world gone mad.
Evaluation: This book is simultaneously scary, laugh-out-loud funny, and right on point politically. The characters are endearing - even, surprisingly, the less-than-sympathetic ones, and the writing is clever and engaging. It would make an excellent book club book for discussion, and a great movie! show less
Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter
audio performance by Edoardo Ballerini
4stars
That was then, this is now; but it’s all much the same; the lives of the rich, famous and the wannabes. What is art? Let’s make a deal.
The book alternates time lines from Italy, in 1962 during the filming of Cleopatra, to destination Hollywood in the present century. There are detours to the UK, Seattle, and small town USA, as the story brings together a diverse set of characters. There were lots of characters show more that I didn’t like in this book and only one that had any appeal at all, Pasquale. Pasquale made the book for me. Pasquale, and the book’s conclusion, and the sharp-edged, blood letting descriptions of each and every character. Scummy or ineffectual, depressed or narcissistic, Jess Walters nails it with every character.
I suppose that the aging producer with his female assistant and the wannabe writer were meant to be exaggerations of type, caricatures of the entertainment business. But, I’ve lived and worked a freeway’s hop from Hollywood for over 30 years. I’ve taught child actors and the children of actors. I’ve worked with film school grads and musicians with teaching credentials. For most of these people the entertainment industry is just that. It’s a job that can provide a living, and with luck, creative satisfaction. But I’ve also met the people who populated this book; the ones who live their lives as if they were caricatures of themselves. I didn’t like them, but I have met them. I’m surprised that I liked a book that was all about them.
I liked it because Walters does more than paint a satirically damning picture of the entertainment biz. While he is diagramming failed success stories and successful failures, he has a lot to say about life and art.
“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing: it's our goddamned story!”
“...he was part of a ruined generation of young men coddled by their parents--by their mothers especially--raised on unearned self-esteem, in a bubble of overaffection, in a sad incubator of phony achievement.”
“To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can’t afford, and when they’re caught in the arms of the wrong person, pitch unlikely explanations. Hospitals pitch birthing centers, daycares pitch love, high schools pitch success . . . car dealerships pitch luxury, counselors self-esteem, masseuses happy endings, cemeteries eternal rest . . . It’s endless, the pitching—endless, exhilarating, soul-sucking, and as unrelenting as death. As ordinary as morning sprinklers.”
I didn’t like his characters, but I loved his writing. show less
audio performance by Edoardo Ballerini
4stars
That was then, this is now; but it’s all much the same; the lives of the rich, famous and the wannabes. What is art? Let’s make a deal.
The book alternates time lines from Italy, in 1962 during the filming of Cleopatra, to destination Hollywood in the present century. There are detours to the UK, Seattle, and small town USA, as the story brings together a diverse set of characters. There were lots of characters show more that I didn’t like in this book and only one that had any appeal at all, Pasquale. Pasquale made the book for me. Pasquale, and the book’s conclusion, and the sharp-edged, blood letting descriptions of each and every character. Scummy or ineffectual, depressed or narcissistic, Jess Walters nails it with every character.
I suppose that the aging producer with his female assistant and the wannabe writer were meant to be exaggerations of type, caricatures of the entertainment business. But, I’ve lived and worked a freeway’s hop from Hollywood for over 30 years. I’ve taught child actors and the children of actors. I’ve worked with film school grads and musicians with teaching credentials. For most of these people the entertainment industry is just that. It’s a job that can provide a living, and with luck, creative satisfaction. But I’ve also met the people who populated this book; the ones who live their lives as if they were caricatures of themselves. I didn’t like them, but I have met them. I’m surprised that I liked a book that was all about them.
I liked it because Walters does more than paint a satirically damning picture of the entertainment biz. While he is diagramming failed success stories and successful failures, he has a lot to say about life and art.
“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing: it's our goddamned story!”
“...he was part of a ruined generation of young men coddled by their parents--by their mothers especially--raised on unearned self-esteem, in a bubble of overaffection, in a sad incubator of phony achievement.”
“To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can’t afford, and when they’re caught in the arms of the wrong person, pitch unlikely explanations. Hospitals pitch birthing centers, daycares pitch love, high schools pitch success . . . car dealerships pitch luxury, counselors self-esteem, masseuses happy endings, cemeteries eternal rest . . . It’s endless, the pitching—endless, exhilarating, soul-sucking, and as unrelenting as death. As ordinary as morning sprinklers.”
I didn’t like his characters, but I loved his writing. show less
A near-perfect novel, full of humor and pathos and bitterness and hope--the classic novelistic themes brought to a modern setting. Frank O'Connor said that a novel is "something that’s built around the character of time, the nature of time, and the effects that time has on events and characters...a sense of continuing life," and Beautiful Ruins, which follows its major characters from their youth in 1962 to somewhere around 2008, meets that now-dated standard. Even the characters too young show more to have been included in this sweep of time are intimately affected by events before their birth. At the end, everything connects in ways that are right but perhaps could not have been anticipated. There is a sense that, for all the pain and regret that circumstances and poor decisions can lead to over a lifetime, somehow all has been well, and all is well, and all will be well, at that higher perspective from which all our parts are only bit parts.
Which is not to say that this book is in any way "heavy." It's funny, and a good read. It's ingeniously constructed, each chapter shifting in perspective, time, and place, yet fitting in with the others in a jigsaw puzzle that comes together in a neat way. The characters are vivid, and I somehow liked even the ones unworthy of being liked. If you are a fan of classic movies, you may take particular pleasure in the journey--some of the early action takes place during the making of "Cleopatra," a movie I found not nearly as bad as its reputation. In short--this is a book for thinking people that there's no need to think over. Enjoy. show less
Which is not to say that this book is in any way "heavy." It's funny, and a good read. It's ingeniously constructed, each chapter shifting in perspective, time, and place, yet fitting in with the others in a jigsaw puzzle that comes together in a neat way. The characters are vivid, and I somehow liked even the ones unworthy of being liked. If you are a fan of classic movies, you may take particular pleasure in the journey--some of the early action takes place during the making of "Cleopatra," a movie I found not nearly as bad as its reputation. In short--this is a book for thinking people that there's no need to think over. Enjoy. show less
In 1909, the city council of Spokane, Washington, issued an ordinance that banned public speaking on the city’s streets. Its goal was to silence union organizing activities by the IWW (International Workers of the World or wobblies). The Wobblies retaliated by launching the Free Speech Fight. On November 9th, soapboxes were erected throughout the city; IWW representatives would ascend, begin to speak, and promptly be hauled off to jail. Close to 500 unionists were incarcerated.
Jess show more Walters recreates the pain and poverty that underlie this struggle in The Cold Millions, a compassionate work of historical fiction that examines workers' struggles in an age of extreme income inequality and political corruption. The story centers on two brothers Gig and Rye Dolan, who are living as vagrants, traveling through the west, searching for work, food, and shelter. Gig is an idealist and a romantic who wants to change the world, while his younger brother Rye is a skeptic who longs for a stable life. Both brothers become involved in the free speech fight and are incarcerated. Rye, who is just 16, is quickly released and travels with labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (a real historical figure) on a trip to raise sufficient funds to hire Clarence Darrow to defend the jailed wobblies.
Walters brings fictional and historical characters to life with humor and wit. The writing is lively, engaging, and immerses the reader in this chaotic period in American history. I highly recommend it. show less
Jess show more Walters recreates the pain and poverty that underlie this struggle in The Cold Millions, a compassionate work of historical fiction that examines workers' struggles in an age of extreme income inequality and political corruption. The story centers on two brothers Gig and Rye Dolan, who are living as vagrants, traveling through the west, searching for work, food, and shelter. Gig is an idealist and a romantic who wants to change the world, while his younger brother Rye is a skeptic who longs for a stable life. Both brothers become involved in the free speech fight and are incarcerated. Rye, who is just 16, is quickly released and travels with labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (a real historical figure) on a trip to raise sufficient funds to hire Clarence Darrow to defend the jailed wobblies.
Walters brings fictional and historical characters to life with humor and wit. The writing is lively, engaging, and immerses the reader in this chaotic period in American history. I highly recommend it. show less
Lists
Open Book 2021 (1)
Edgar Award (1)
Five star books (1)
Favourite Books (1)
True Crime Books (1)
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 22
- Also by
- 16
- Members
- 10,642
- Popularity
- #2,235
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 590
- ISBNs
- 222
- Languages
- 13
- Favorited
- 13
