At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting... Among the brightest & best of his graduating class at Princeton, Changez is snapped up by an elite firm & thrives on New York & the intensity of his work. & his infatuation with fragile Erica promises entree into Manhattan society on the exalted footing his own family once held back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez`s meteoric rise to personal & professional success: the fulfillment of the immigrant`s dream. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in the city he loves suddenly overturned, & his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. & Changez`s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, & perhaps even love.