As I was summarizing the plot of Dave Egger’s latest work of fiction, “A Hologram for the King” to my wife, she said, “Oh, it sounds like a 21st century ‘Death of a Salesman.’” 

She has a particular genius for getting to the point! “A Hologram for the King,” with spare prose and cleanly drawn images, opens a meditation on America’s place in the world, though he resists the temptation to supply a template for answers. 

Alan Clay is in disarray. At 54, he is a languishing sales consultant, divorced, nearly bankrupt, with a daughter in her first year at a very expensive college, and his home up for sale as he tries to avoid foreclosure. 

Hope arrives with an offer to represent a company that has developed a sophisticated holographic communications system for the planned King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia. Alan believes the technology will sell itself, and with his six-figure commission, everything that ails him will be fixed. Ah, but there’s the rub.

He and his sales team are left in a massive tent at the edge of the planned city, now but three gleaming towers in the relentless sandscape … and there they wait. Day after day, the expected arrival of the King is postponed, and Alan is left to ruminate on his life. 

Eventually, the King does arrive, but the Chinese are ever lurking in the background as savvy competitors, while Alan has the uneasy feeling that the Americans are viewed by the Saudis as clueless amateurs. 

As a metaphor for America in a global economy, Eggers describes a geography of doubt with such a self-effacing main character that we are sympathetically drawn into his predicament. He is a 21st century Everyman, and we can understand his problems. 

If we ourselves are not in such a tenuous situation, we know others who are, or have been – or could easily arrive there. Eggers leads us into the desert, where others have sought purification and spiritual insight, but he leaves us there with Adam Clay to discern our own way forward.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for best fiction in 2012, “A Hologram for the King” is a modern tale of depth and intelligence, leaving one with plenty to consider when the cover is closed.