The Bag Lady Papers: The Priceless Experience of Losing It All

The Bag Lady Papers: The Priceless Experience of Losing it All comes from a successful career woman whose money one day vanished overnight in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. She lost every cent she ever saved - and in the process of sorting through her financial crisis, she learned a lot about 'bag lady' money management and recovery. Any collection will find this an appealing, strong read.

As someone who followed the Madoff scandal with great interest, though thankfully not involved, I looked forward to reading Penney's personal account of how she was affected. The book didn't disappoint in any way.

This is a perfect antidote to financial reversals. After having lost virtually all her non-real estate assets in the Madoff debacle, this elderly unemployed woman kept her wits about her, stayed sane, and took the small steps needed to restore a bit of her finances. She filled out the endless bureaucratic forms to apply for government compensation and did all the other banal tasks to bail herself out of the disaster. As Penney compiles an ever-lengthening list of things money can't buy -- including physical (and mental) health, love, trust, wisdom, admiration, friendship, talent, energy, spirit of adventure, courage, and peace of mind -- she almost convinces you of money's minuscule contribution to the well-lived life. Penney illustrates how she overcame despair over her vanished nestegg : she retains her deep affection for the psychiatrist who first referred her to Madoff, focusing instead on his earlier helpful treatment of her childhood development issues. The writing is excellent, and it is a very fast read that I expect to return to more than once.

Very interesting, fun, and so very current. It gives you a very good insight into the Madoff scandal, not just the picture we all have of him ducking into his building. This lady details how her life spiraled downward and the support system she had that prevented her from hitting rock bottom.

It would be easy to dismiss Alexandra Penney's woes as those of a rich woman far removed from the struggle for money those of us who regularly check our bank balance with panic, but that would be a mistake. This memoir is partly about Madoff, but even more, about reinvention and chutzpah. The most interesting parts, in fact, are often in Penney's previous life, when she was saving the money she invested with Madoff, rather than attending dinner parties and fretting about how her newly PORC (Person of Reduced Circumstances) self will be resolved. How many young women would dare put a 4-page memo in their boss's inbox about everything that's wrong with Vogue and how it could be fixed, or so cavalierly write about becoming editor in chief of Self and almost declining the job? It would all seem effortless if it wasn't clear that Penney, by then a single mom, always had a master plan somewhere in her mind, a vision of her life not as a writer, but as an artist, wearing one of her favorite white shirts and painting or doing photography. She paints a portrait of both bohemian New York as well as the highest echelons of media life, and it's clear that the money she wanted to keep as a nest egg was less about buying things and more about buying security. Penney's process of claiming her artist self, of choosing the less materially sound but more soulfully satisfying life, is what this book is really about, and provides for the most dramatic and moving moments. Her fears about becoming a bag lady, sprinkled throughout the book, at first sounded odd, since surely that would not happen, but Penney makes sure we know just how long she's subsisted on these fears and why they do--and don't--matter. The alternating chapters, past to present, flow smoothly but there is a clear demarcation; there's a frenzy to the chapters about the past, an energy, that is missing in the mundanity of writing about blogging (which the blog-to-book author really needs to rethink in 2010, as it's been don to death). Writing about blogging and receiving comments and calling her lawyer and seeing Madoff everywhere was surely cathartic, but almost grinds to a halt. Penney redeems the book with that same charm she used to pen a book called How to Make Love to a Man after a love told her she wasn't up to par in bed. That stick-to-it-tiveness is what makes Penney persevere and is at the heart of this book. What lingers is her attitude and the power of her lists of what money can and can't buy. Her insights and her friends' are ones that we could all do to examine in the current economic climate.