Moral Hazard

Cath is a funny, left-leaning woman who never expected to find herself writing speeches for financiers in a Manhattan skyscraper. Her male colleagues on Wall Street make it clear she isn't welcome, but she takes the job because she urgently needs the income. Her husband Bailey, a good deal older than she is, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's after a decade of happy marriage.

Cath's life splits into two grim halves. At the office she navigates the warped logic and tangled egos of high finance, and at home she watches the man she loves slowly fade. Keeping herself from unraveling is a struggle of its own. As the money markets edge toward a meltdown, Cath is confronted with personal catastrophe and an ethical bind she cannot avoid.

Jennings writes in spare, precise sentences full of surprising, revealing details. The novel moves quickly and grips the reader, populated by odd, memorable characters and carried along by a sardonic, sharp-witted intelligence.