Our hero, Sullivan Chance, is plucked from the rustic obscurity of the American Southwest and thrust by a scheming producer into the spotlight of a new a “reality” show in which a penniless Sullivan has to travel around the world in eighty days by begging and borrowing whatever he can. If he makes it, he will win $10 million. A vast American audience becomes hooked on the hapless daydreamer’s exploits. His adventures take him from the grimy docks of New York to the exotic coast of West Africa, from the mystical heights of the Himalayas deep into the unseen heart of the Amazon. Sullivan Chance becomes the center of a televisual whirlwind in this biting satire of our media-mad, constantly connected, globalized world. Amazingly, improbably, Sullivan makes it around the world before the deadline, but soon after he collects his prize, he’s shot down on the main street of his hometown and the money goes missing. We discover Sullivan’s fate at the beginning of the story, and the rest of the book takes us on an unpredictable journey to uncover the mysterious life and death of Sullivan Chance.