Easy Money

by Barbara Wright

Reminiscent of Mona Simpson's Anywhere But Here, Wright's first novel takes a compassionate look at a young woman who has to grow up too soon and who must find in herself the strength to make it on her own. Between her job and caring for her depressed father, Jay Winbourne tries desperately to hold things together--but everything's going to pieces anyway.

390 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1995

About the author

Barbara Wright grew up in North Carolina and has lived in France, Korea, and El Salvador. Her novels include Crow (Random House) Easy Money (Algonquin) and Plain Language (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster), which won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. She has worked as a fact checker for Esquire Magazine and as a screenwriter. She lives in Denver with her husband and plays tennis and jazz piano in her spare time.

Reviews

[Treasure Island Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the parts of this book that took place in North Carolina with Mimmaw and Aunt Effie and Uncle Floyd. The rest of the book was too gritty for me. I felt sorry for Jay (Jacqueline) and Jack. Self-sabotage seemed to be an inherited family trait.

[Shawnedavis]

My book report is being written for Mrs. Orona english class. The book is called Easy Money by Barbara Wright. This book has 390 pages and the published by Alogonquin books of chapel hill. The reason why i chose this book is because of the title. It caught my attention because I would love to make easy money. I also decided to check this book out because of the story line. The back cover of the book caught my attention to how the characters would come across their easy money.

The main characters of this book are Jay Winbourne, and her father Jack Winbourne. Jay and her father jack are important characters because jay and her father are all that they have. Her mom died when she was five. Leaving her dad to play the stocks to try and become wealthy. Jay wants to help her father, but her dad doesn’t want her to stress, Jay felt stressed either way leaving her dad to rely on his hopes and dreams to hit in the stock market. Jay has plans to go to college and she found out that she couldn’t because her father lost her tuition money in the stocks. So Jay decided to go off to NYC to pursue her own dreams.

The only other character that is important is the young man that Jay meets who she realizes that he is much like her father. He is a struggling musician, who is also trying to find his self and get money.

Easy Money is a fiction book, the book was set in the United States, I think this book was centered in a more present day time. Jay, the main character is trying to get out on her own and live her dreams by going to college. In the end of the book things didn’t go as planned Jay faced many distractions and she had to overcome a lot of things. But her main focus was that she needed and wanted to do better than her and her father and be able to help her father with his money issues.


My final decision about this book was that the book was great as for things that happen in real life situations. The book was simple and very understandable. The strong suits that this book has is that it pointed out how things can be in real life as for someone who is struggling with real life problems and situations and it shows peoples outcomes. If I learned one thing from this book is that it is showing how real,real life can get and how you can either fall or sink. I would recommend this book to many who have questions about the real life and what they can expect from it. The weak points that I’ve found about this book is that there was more of a focus on the money than the emotional state of Jay and how she had to become a stronger women to overcome the obstacles that she faced, on her own.

[sofie jacobsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I enjoyed it. There's a good amount of swearing. The characters are interesting and well rounded by the end of the book and it is full of delicious phrases.