Strange Death of Sullivan Chance (PDF)

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 television show, a "e;reality"e; 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. Along the way, as the show's ratings go through the roof, Sullivan meets an unforgettable cast of cynics and charlatans. He may seem like a halfwit and a dupe to those charlatans, but he has a gentle wisdom and an uncanny ability to adapt to the culture, the speech patterns, and even the physical mannerisms of the people around him. He is the lovable figure at 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 of discovery, gradually unraveling the mystery of who killed Sullivan Chance. The novel takes the form of a narrative kaleidoscope of interviews, newspaper articles, police reports, and excerpts from (imaginary) works of science, history, and literature. Woven seamlessly together, they form a constantly changing, highly entertaining, and steadily unfolding tapestry of Sullivan's remarkable life and strange death.