The Big Banana

With his seductively entertaining novel, The Big Banana, Roberto Quesada invokes the magic of great Latin American fiction as he follows the struggles of an ensemble cast of endearingly eccentric characters chasing their dreams in New York City.

Meet Eduardo, the Honduran screen-star-wannabe; his great love, Miriam whose obsession with Bond—James Bond (the one played by Roger Moore, quite specifically)—leads to a purely un-accidental international encounter; and a host of zany Central and South American acquaintances—especially the Chilean Casagrande, the fun-loving, magnanimous, professionally unemployed mystic-philosopher-musician-singer who brings them all together.

Against the backdrop of their hardscrabble everyday lives, Quesada wields a bold brush to paint in broad strokes a festive mural awash in the vivid colors of the outlandish fantasies that drive Eduardo and his friends. Ultimately, the elusive prize of friendship and laughter dwarf the seemingly larger goals of money and success.