Eric Packer is a 28-year-old multibillionaire asset manager. We join him on what will become a particularly eventful April day in turn-of-the-21st-century Manhattan. He's on a personal odyssey to get a haircut.

Sitting in his stretch limousine as it moves across town, he finds the city at a virtual standstill because the president is visiting, a rapper's funeral is proceeding, and a violent protest is being staged in Times Square by antiglobalist groups. Most worryingly, Eric's bodyguards are concerned that he may be a target....

An electrifying study in affectlessness, infused with deep cynicism and measured detachment; a harsh indictment of the life-denying tendencies of capitalism; as brutal a dissection of the American dream as Wolfe's Bonfire or Ellis' Psycho, Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis is a caustic prophecy all too quickly realized.