Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson is a staff pick at Annie Bloom’s Books in Portland, OR.
From the publisher:
New to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he’s landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: a loping giant who hardly leaves his room, and a weight-obsessed neurotic who keeps no fewer than forty-seven lamps throughout the house, blazing at all hours. Unwilling to accept this fate, Slide––a barber with an opaque past––embarks on a quest for the perfect apartment, pinballing through the sprawling, madcap city of Polis and its endless procession of neighborhoods. As he bounces from foldout couch to disaster-relief tent, falling in with some tough types, Slide begins to realize that he’s going to have to scratch and claw just to claim a place for himself in this world––let alone a place with in-unit laundry. An exuberant, fantastical odyssey, Pay As You Go wonders if what we’re searching for is ever really out there. Its pages––surreal, biting, and teeming with life––announce the startling talents of Eskor David Johnson, who knows that all any of us really want is a place to rest our head.
“Though I’ve read many funny books, I’ve read few that made me laugh out loud and fewer still that have had me guffawing so hard I had to put the book down. Eskor David Johnson’s Pay As You Go is a veritable ab workout of a book. I can’t remember the last time I cheered as rowdily as I have for Slide, our aspirant barber with a past. Relatable to anyone who has endured city life, his surreal and uproarious picaresque is a love letter to cities and all who have lived in them.”
—Tochi Onyebuchi, NPR, Books We Love