A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

Alan Clay has a life that's unravelling - a series of bad decisions have brought him to middle age with a bitter ex-wife, no money, a shattered career, and a strange lump on the back of his neck. He's sure one meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia would solve all his problems - if only the King would show up!

With this novel, Eggers presents a mash-up of "Death of a Salesman" and "Waiting for Godot." Pathetic salesman waits for his next (last?) big presentation that he's sure will finally bring him success. While waiting for the king, it seems Alan may completely fall apart - or die by his own ineptitude.

It's a slow-speed car crash that you can't avoid. From the start you know the storyline is unlikely to come out well for Alan, but just how it goes and where it ends is the mystery. Alan's wandering mind takes us back and forth in time, in jerky bits of story and memory. He bumbles into several adventures that could either bring epiphany or the end.

I enjoyed this book simply as one man's foibles and failures - but if you wish, you could also analyze lots of ideas about commercialism, out-sourcing, modern technology, consumerism ...

Handling Sin by Michael Malone

Raleigh Hayes is a solid, conservative, thoughtful, civic-minded insurance agent. He's plotted and planned his life to be risk-reduced and bland - but he's about to realize you just can't count on everybody else playing by your rules.

His divorced, defrocked father just escaped from the hospital, bought a Cadillac, and took off for New Orleans with a young black woman. He's left in his wake a list of crazy, unexplained tasks for Raleigh to perform in order to preserve his inheritance.

The task list pushes Raleigh into a wild, scavenger-hunt-type road trip adventure that will shake up his whole life. Along the way he'll discover friends, family, and (gasp) *fun* that he hadn't planned on.

I found this book by way of a list of "best comic novel" recommendations. It's long (600 pages), but you'll be hooked by Raleigh's reluctant, inadvertent journey.

Drink Play Fuck by Andrew Gottlieb

This book is a satirical male response to that other famous book about a woman finding herself after the breakup of her marriage. Except this one is subtitled: "One man's search for anything across Ireland, Vegas, and Thailand."

When Bob's wife blindsides him with a divorce, he decides to take a year off. First, he goes to Ireland. In the airport he meets a guy who becomes his buddy and drinking tour guide. After four months, he decides that Lady Luck is calling by way of Vegas - where he meets a new life coach and friend who helps him gamble and golf away another four months. When he decides his next four months should be more, ahem, physical in nature ... his guru directs him to a remote resort in Thailand.

This book is light, comical, and could be enlightening if you were open to that sort of thing - or at least, it's as "life-changing" as I found the other book (ie: not at all). There is a point to the whole adventure, and it turns out that it's not anywhere near as debauched as it sounds.