Banana Republican Blues is a financial crisis novel concerning to travails and travels of a penniless former hedge fund maven, crossing the country in search of work as a road house chef. Having fallen to his level of incompetence, Eddie is out of his element in the blue collar world he now inhabits, and his cluelessness is plainly apparent to all he comes into contact with, but his humbling brings out the best in him as he sees the world from the downside up. A climactic chili duel with the world champion of chili at the height of a presidential campaign results in an historic election and a constitutional crisis.
As the prologue, cribbed from Don Quixote, indicates, Eddie is on a quixotic journey to establish his personal recipe, braised brisket of beef in mole poblano, as the one true chili. The remainder of the book is written in the author’s original style, a kind of road-hugging, hillbilly hip-hop. If a financial crisis novel is of interest to you, please enjoy.