The Big Banana

The hero of Roberto Quesada's The Big Banana has appropriately big ambitions: he dreams of becoming a famous movie star. With that intention, Eduardo Lin has come to try his luck in New York City. But as his friend Casagrande points out, it's no simple matter for an undocumented Honduran to make a show-biz splash in el norte:

Imagine a bananero in Hollywood? Here's El Gran Banana, The Big Banana, The Big Banana in the Big Manzana, The Big Banana in the Big Apple, see how it doesn't rhyme in English? What do you think? Some time later New York will be invaded by The Big Banana? Are you crazy, huevón?

Crazy he may be, but Eduardo is determined to give it a shot. For starters, he rents a room in a Bronx household (inhabited by immigrants from every corner of Latin America) and gets himself hired by a gringo contractor. Eventually, he does realize his dream--after a fashion, anyway--and the novel features cameo appearances by such luminaries as Steven Spielberg and Roger Moore. Yet it is Eduardo's interactions with his friends and his environment that make The Big Banana special. Quesada counterbalances the misery and alienation of Eduardo's existence with one picaresque adventure after another. Indeed, his explorations of the high (and low) life place this novel in the tradition of Tom Jones, Candide, and Moll Flanders. True to form, when Eduardo finally discovers love and ultimate meaning, they're not far from his own doorstep. --Margaret Prior