Study Guide

A Hologram for the King Chapter 1

By Dave Eggers

Chapter 1

Our protagonist, Alan Clay, lands in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
We learn that he's there to pitch a holographic teleconferencing system (fancy) to King Abdullah (fancier), who's developing a new city in the desert (fanciest).
Alan suffers a bout of anxiety and self-doubt: He's kind of screwed up his life by making stupid decisions and always doing what was easiest.
And that's biting him in the butt right now. He's in massive debt from a failed business venture, his ex-wife plagues him, and he can't afford to send his daughter, Kit, to college.
If that's not enough, Alan also reflects on the bizarre suicide of his friend, Charlie Fallon, who drowned himself in a lake after a long romance with Transcendentalist writers.
He'd seen Charlie stepping in to the lake that day, but thought nothing of it. We get the sense that Alan carries a wee bit of emotional baggage because of this.