"A brilliant excursion into the decadence of contemporary culture" - "Sunday Times". Eric Packer is a twenty-eight-year-old multi-billionaire asset manager. We join him on what will become a particularly eventful April day in turn-of-the-twenty-first-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 anti-globalist 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", "Cosmopolis" is a caustic prophecy all too quickly realized. "A prose-poem about New York ...DeLillo has always been good at telling us where we"re heading ...we ignore him at our peril" - Blake Morrison, "Guardian".