Walter Kirn criticized the novel in The New York Times, writing 'Beware the novel of ideas, particularly when the ideas come first and all the novel stuff (like the story) comes second. weave halos of import around every event'. Louis Post-Dispatch called the book 'eerily brilliant' and that it 'confirms Don DeLillo's place among elite.' John Updike wrote in The New Yorker that 'DeLillo's fervent intelligence and his fastidious, edgy prose. Reviews for Cosmopolis were generally mixed, especially compared to many of DeLillo's previous novels. Through the course of the day, the protagonist loses incredible amounts of money for his clients by betting against the rise of the Yen. Packer is also stalked by two men, a comical 'pastry assassin' and an unstable ' credible threat'. Along the way, the hero has several chance meetings with his wife and sexual encounters with other women. Packer's voyage is obstructed by various traffic jams caused by a presidential visit to the city, a full-fledged anti-capitalist riot, and a funeral procession for a Sufi rap star. It is also cork-lined to eliminate (although unsuccessfully, as Packer notes) the intrusion of street noise. He drives around in a stretch limo, which is richly described as luxurious, spacious and highly technical, filled with television screens and computer monitors, bulletproofed and floored with Carrara marble. His thirteenth novel, it was published by Scribner on April 14, 2003.Ĭosmopolis is the story of Eric Packer, a 28-year-old multi-billionaire asset manager who makes an odyssey across midtown Manhattan to get a haircut. Cosmopolis is a novel by American writer Don DeLillo.

Point Omega by Don DeLillo