The hero of this astonishing novel is called Chance - he may be the man of tomorrow. Flung into the real world when his rich benefactor dies, Chance is helped on his life journey by Elizabeth Eve, the young, beautiful, resourceful wife of a dying Wall Street mogul. Accidentally launched into a world of sex, money, power - and national television - he becomes a media superstar, a household name, the man of the hour - and, who knows, perhaps the next President of the United States of America.

Jerzy Kosinski won France's Best Foreign Book Award for The Painted Bird, the National Book Award in Fiction for Steps, and received the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters' Award in Literature. He is also the author of Being There, The Devil Tree, Cockpit, Blind Date, Passion Play and Pinball, and of several non-fiction works. His books have been translated into most major languages.

Mr Kosinski taught English at Wesleyan, Princeton and Yale Universities. He was the President of the American Center of P.E.N., an association of writers and editors, and was active in many human rights organisations. He died in 1991.