He desperately needs the deal to come through. Set in Saudi Arabia, 'Hologram' follows the yearnings and disappointments of its hapless hero, Alan Clay, a downsized sales executive hoping to score (on behalf of an American firm) a major information technology contract. This time, there's nothing showy to Eggers' prose, which is spare, austere, plainspoken. 'Hologram' is not a self-conscious work of exuberance or literary prestidigitation - qualities that marked his very successful debut, the 2000 memoir 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.' Eggers continued to experiment with form and style in subsequent works, such as 'You Shall Know Our Velocity,' but results were mixed. This novel reminds us that above all, Eggers is a writer of books, and a writer of the highest order. He has also written two screenplays and is a gifted visual artist. Yet the book never seems didactic or driven by a political agenda.įor years, Eggers has been celebrated for his mini-publishing empire, McSweeney's, his national and nonprofit writing and tutoring 826 centers, and various philanthropic projects. Watch Dave Eggers accomplish this rare feat in his latest novel, 'A Hologram for the King.' It is an extraordinary work of timely and provocative themes, including the decline of American manufacturing, the sufferings of the middle class and the collapse of the global economy. In his introduction to a reissue of Donald Antrim's brilliant debut novel, 'The Verificationist,' George Saunders notes that in lesser works of fiction, an author's agenda can make itself too prominent: 'Writer A is trying to let you know that she once hitchhiked across Rwanda.' But in the best fiction, he writes, 'authorial intent gets lost or repurposed by the actual energy of the book.

A hologram for the king novel