A Hologram for the King Themes

Alan Clay has reached a crossroads in his life: he's middle-aged, out of a job, and scraping the bottom of the barrel financially. Basically, he's ripe for an identity crisis—and boy does he get...

There's no question that Alan's had a rough time of things: he's weathered an awful marriage, stressful jobs, unemployment, a tragic national crisis, and the bizarre death of his friend. It's only...

The "hero" of A Hologram For the King has had a pretty global adulthood: he's traveled extensively to make deals for Schwinn—disastrous ones, but still—and feels pretty comfortable being a stra...

In so many ways, the reality of KAEC is nothing more than a vision or a hope for what the desert city might be in the future. And like a desert mirage, there's not much substance to that vision. Th...

We meet Alan at a real low point in his life. He's essentially jobless, nearly homeless, and has no sense of purpose or personal value—an Everyman for the U.S. in the early 2000s. His run-in with...

After a decade of total failure and personal rejections, Alan feels like a stranger in his own life. He has little emotional connection to other human beings and is made to feel old and irrelevant...

If you've ever gotten in trouble for sending a text to the wrong person, you know what a minefield communication can be. Without the help of non-verbal cues (a horrified look or an eyeroll), you're...

There's plenty of emotional baggage being carried all over the desert in this work. Alan soldiers through A Hologram For the King knowing that he's the author of his own misery. He's picked the wro...

Alan's not on a pleasure cruise in A Hologram For the King. Eggers places his character squarely in the middle of the desert so he can do some serious soul-searching about how he got to this impove...

There's so much at stake for Alan in A Hologram For the King. He has exactly one shot to save himself from financial ruin and prove that he's not the worst dad of the year. Also at stake? His self-...