Ponder

A darkly comic tale of love, loss, and heavy drinking in Walt Disney World at the turn of the millennium

Murray “Cheese” Marks and John Apple, his slimmer, richer, more single friend, have chosen the happiest place on Earth for their annual boys’ trip. Disney World may seem like a strange choice for two grown men on a glorified binge-drinking trip; it is. But Cheese has never been, and his wife allows him this expense-free trip.

The Magic Kingdom was the last place John saw his parents before they died in a plane crash. John Apple was twelve then and wanted to return before he turned thirty.

Cheese and John’s buddy-comedy turns into a love-triangle drama when they meet a beautiful, free-spirited southern Belle named Virginia. John and Cheese quickly fall in love—but Virginia’s parents inexplicably push her not toward the handsome, single millionaire, but toward Cheese. And Cheese can’t help but encourage it—at least until his wife and John’s ex descend on Florida.

Ponder is the second novel from Daniel Roberts, author of the USA Today bestselling Bar Maid, and showcases the same sardonic style that Kirkus praised as “old-school, slightly surreal humor [that] has a dash of Barthelme or Perelman.”
 

Daniel Roberts’s debut novel Bar Maid was a USA Today bestseller. Prior to becoming an author, he wrote plays: Haunted House which The New York Times called “sparklingly original with characters that stick”; and Brando, of which Time Out New York wrote, “An impressive piece of writing recalling Edward Albee or John Guare.” Vocationally, Roberts works as a private investor and venture capitalist in New York City, where he lives with young daughter.

A USA Today bestselling author

"My grandfather, IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, Jr. was generationally if not vocationally linked to Walter Elias Disney. I have no doubt that these two titans would become absorbed in Daniel Roberts's wonderfully irreverent take on the world's most popular vacation spot!"
 —Ralph Watson McElvenny, author of the New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice biography, The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived

"Roberts' old-school, slightly surreal humor has a dash of Barthelme or Perelman.”—Kirkus Reviews