From hedge fund maven, to homeless, to Presidential contender, to Greyhound bus trip, to chili mogul; Edison Conover's life looks like a bear market chart.
When Eddie loses his family's Forbes 400 fortune to leveraged bets on Wall Street, his safety net is a gift for gab and a prize winning chili con carne. He takes to the road in a rickety Cadillac Eldorado, seeking work as a roadhouse chef in the bankrupt service economy. To ensure his reputation precedes him, he engages in viral marketing over the CB radio, spinning racy tales of a ladykiller chili and its peripatetic chef, which find a skeptical audience.
When Eddie meets Cheyenne, a spirited woman with a price on her head and a deadly butterfly knife, trouble follows wherever they go, until he challenges the national chili champion to a one on one cook-off which, with assistance from a TV comedian, determines the results of a national election.
Reflecting on his experiences at the bottom of the food chain, Eddie rethinks his elitist views on political economy, and stands an excellent chance of putting his ideas into practice.
Written in a carefully cadenced prose, reminiscent of Kubla Khan, it eschews much of the navel gazing of literary fiction in favor of a tale well told, melding Don Quixote and Cinderella.