Eggers turns reality into literature. The protagonist, Alan Clay, is a man from the Old Economy who has been nearly sidelined, not entirely without his own doing, and is now struggling to pay his daughter's tuition fees while trying to maintain a shred of his dignity. He has one last chance to turn his financial situation and, consequently, his life around: he flies to Saudi Arabia with a team of young people for an American IT company. There, in the middle of the desert, a sparkling economic metropolis is set to emerge, and they aim to present their advanced IT technology to the Saudi king, which they hope will supply the city. In a tent on the edge of the vast construction site that will one day become the city, they contend not only with oppressive heat and shaky WiFi but also with waiting for a king who simply does not arrive. Eggers' novel about.