A change is as good as a rest they say and this novella is certainly a change. If you need waking up, this is the book for you, with its short chapters and fast pace. Despite the narrator’s protestations, it is not an advice manual, not a manual of good advice, at least. It feels at first as if you are being hustled by a very keen, very diligent salesman, selling something everyone wants: advice on how to Get Rich Quick. It appeals to the greed in Man, how to have what you can’t actually afford.

The narrative jumps around a bit with several detours and digressions which give us some of the narrator’s back story, but it centres on the hapless Marlon, a man who bought a house he can’t afford. He is the most frustrating man alive and I would very much like to slap him, as would his wife who has just discovered the extent of the financial mess Marlon has got them into. He has no money sense, no financial acumen and hopes that charm and excuses will help him get by – which they do, until they don’t.

He’s also a risk-taker and speaking as one who is a hundred per cent risk averse, especially when it comes to financial investment, I think he is mad! He finds himself involved in a scheme, or should that be scam, suggested by the narrator. To save his home from being repossessed, he has to find $213,800.42 by 5pm, or $50,000 to invest in a most precarious scheme – cryptocurrency – which will yield more money than he can dream of! He realises he can borrow the necessary $50,000 from family and cajoles them into believing in him. Then, after much internal debate, he presses the button and watches his bank account fall to zero.

GRQ is short and best read quickly; the heart rate quickens at times when emotions run high; frustration with Marlon, sympathy for his wife, Viola, and disgust with the narrator: just how low will he sink?

Markets fluctuate and the art of the savvy investor is to know when to buy and when to sell. Unlike the narrator, Marlon isn’t that savvy! There is also an earthquake, a big one, real or metaphorical, but Marlon finds himself trapped, alone, in his nuclear fallout shelter (read the book and you’ll understand). There is also a poignant explanation of a deeper, darker secret which Marlon hides which helps us sympathise with him, just a little.

It came as no surprise to learn that the author is a screen writer: his voice is clear and his characters as realistic as they are irritating; they seem authentic and not the product of some fevered imagination (which of course, they are – I think). The narrator who addresses the reader directly, strikes you as a plausible, guy next door type, some one you can trust, with his off the cuff humour and insightful observation of the people around him while Marlon is, as I have already implied, a gullible and incompetent dreamer.

GRQ is short and best read quickly; the heart rate quickens at times when emotions run high; frustration with Marlon, sympathy for his wife, Viola, and disgust with the narrator: just how low will he sink?

A satisfying read? I’ll let you decide for yourself. It won’t take you long.


GRQ is published by Fly on the Wall Press