“I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.” STEVE MARTIN, actor, writer, comedian, musician
Illustration: Homer Simpson dollar bill by Jeremy Hara, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Visit artist Jeremy Hara at his blog jeremyhara.blogspot.com.
Last week, Silver Birch Press released DEBT by Rachel Carey — one of the best novels we’ve read in many years. Read our original post here.
We’re happy to report that a Kindle version of the book is now available at this link. The Amazon.com page also includes the “look inside” feature where you can enjoy a passage from this debut novel by Rachel Carey.
A review on the Amazon.com site captures much of what I love about this novel — characterizing the author as a 21st Century Jane Austen (here, here!) — so I’m including it below.
In Rachel Carey’s debut novel, Debt, money (or lack thereof) and class hold roughly the same importance they do in a 19th century novel of manners. She has taken the conventions of chic lit (all the fancy restaurants and mindless consumption you see in books like Bergdorf Blondes) and mixed them with a subtly snarky style that evokes a 21st century Jane Austen.
She is keenly observant, pricking her characters’ pretensions with subtle gibes that are so sharp you almost don’t notice them until they draw blood.
The characters–and there are a lot of them–are all fully realized. There’s the entitled Nadya–it’s her world, you just live in it–and the totally adorable Clyde. Our narrator is would-be novelist Lillian whose work in progress is so downbeat it even depresses her and who is beginning to regret the way her student debt is piling up without her having much to show for it. That would depress anyone.
But this is a comedy, a multi-layered farce that treats money the way Sex and the City treated sex. Carey has a good time tweaking pop culture–there’s a hilarious running gag involving a blog called “shopacovery”–and everything about Lillian’s pretentious writing teachers will resonate with anyone who’s ever taken a writing class.
This book is subversive and sly and extremely entertaining. If you loved books like Confessions of a Shopaholic and The Devil Wears Prada, you will love Debt.
Silver Birch Press is pleased to announce the February 2013 release of DEBT, a debut novel by Rachel Carey. This book has everything we love in a great read — compelling premise, well-drawn characters, humor, wit, and outstanding writing. It’s a literary page turner (yes, there is such a thing!) that will make you eager for this gifted author’s next book.
Set in New York City, Debt — a satirical look at the 2008 financial meltdown — follows a range of characters who owe something to someone in a variety of ways. From main character Lillian Fitzgerald — a recent grad with an Master’s in Creative Writing in one hand and $100,000 bill for her student loans in the other — to Henry Bolt, the mysterious force who owns the bank that financed Lillian’s student loans, and an assortment of other people up and down the debt chain (bill collectors, stock market mavens, the wealthy, the foreclosed, the bankrupt, the desperate, the spoiled, the gamblers, the winners, and the losers), Debt covers a wide universe without leaving the five boroughs.
I see great things ahead for author Rachel Carey and feel honored that Silver Birch Press has published this gifted writer’s first novel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rachel Carey is a writer and filmmaker. She received an MFA in Film Directing from NYU, an M.Ed. from Harvard, and a BA in English from Yale. She currently lives with her family in New Jersey and teaches college film classes. Debt is her first novel.
Find Debt, a novel by Rachel Carey at Amazon.com.
Cover photo by Jeff McCrum
Silver Birch Press 