Cosmopolis

About this book

From Publishers Weekly DeLillo skates through a day in the life of a brilliant and precocious New Economy billionaire in this monotone 13th novel a study in big money and affectlessness. As one character remarks 28-year-old Eric Packer "wants to be one civilization ahead of this one." But on an April day in the year 2000 Erics fortune and life fall apart. The story tracks him as he traverses Manhattan in his stretch limo. His goal: a haircut at Anthonys his fathers old barber. But on this day his driver has to navigate a presidential visit an attack by anarchists and a rappers funeral. Meanwhile the yen is mounting destroying Erics bet against it. The catastrophe liberates Erics destructive instinct-he shoots another character and increases his bet. Mostly the action consists of sequences in the back of the limo (where he stages meetings with his doctor various corporate officers and a New Economy guru) interrupted by various pit stops. He lunches with his wife of 22 days Elise Shifrin. He has sex with two women his art consultant and a bodyguard. He is hit in the face with a pie by a protester. He knows he is being stalked and the novel stages a final convergence between the ex-tycoon and his stalker. DeLillo practically invented the predominant vernacular of the late 90s (the irony the close reading of consumer goods the mock complexity of technobabble) in White Noise but he seems surprisingly disengaged here. His spotlighted New Economy icon Eric doesnt work either as a genius financier (he is all about gadgetry not exchange-theres no love of the deal in his "frozen heart") or a thinker. The threats posed by the contingencies that he faces cannot lever him out of his recalcitrant one-dimensionality. DeLillo is surely an American master but this time out he is doodling. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.