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Amazon.co.uk Review
At the age of 22, Dave Eggers became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of labour, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his eight-year-old brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor, decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings between making his brother's upbringing fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is also, perhaps less successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, Generation-X way, naturally). In the early 1990s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of time here on Might, the hipster culture of San Francisco's South Park and his own efforts to get on to MTV's Real World. This sort of thing doesn't age very well--but then, Eggers knows that. There's no criticism you can come up with that he hasn't put into A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius already. "The book thereafter is kind of uneven," he tells us regarding the contents after page 109, and while that's true, it's still uneven in a way that is funny and heartfelt and interesting. All this self-consciousness could have become unbearably arch. It's a testament to Eggers's skill as a writer--and to the heartbreaking particulars of his story--that it doesn't. Eggers comes from the most media-saturated generation in history--so much so that he can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt for him. What may seem like postmodern noodling is really just Eggers writing about pain in the only honest way available to him. Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity, and--especially in its concluding pages--this memoir as metafiction is affecting beyond all rational explanation. --Mary Park
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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" This is a beautifully ragged, laugh-out-loud funny and utterly unforgettable book."
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Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the trees calligraphic. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the trees calligraphic. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The book I wish I'd written,
By r_byass@hotmail.com (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Paperback)
Perhaps it's the corny, self indulgent title, but all thoughts of equally corny phrases spring to mind when summing up this book - 'a book for our generation', 'the book I've always wanted to write', blah blah blah. Don't listen to the hairsplitters who whinge about a lack of 'structure'. The genius of this book (and there is some there) is that it manages to convey tragedy and pathos through slightly cynical, incredibly self-conscious eyes. Which is exactly how 'our' (current twentysomethings) generation feels - both desensitised, seen-it-all before, alert to cliche and knowing cultural references - and idealistic, hopeful. In this it succeeds where 99.9% of contemporary fiction fails. Just read it!
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The funniest book ever,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Paperback)
I disagree with the other reviewers - I thought this book more than lived up to the hype - unlike some other books, like 'White Teeth' - how did that win the Guardian First Novel over this? This book is a hundred times better - it utterly lives up to its title.I've never quite read a book structured like this before - the acknowledgements themselves, as long as they are, had me in hysterics and their lightness was a brilliant contrast to the actual 'book' which within 3 pages had me nearly in tears. It's one of those literary novels which is accessible and even better funny. And the word 'post modern' does apply but, (and this must be a record) it manages to do that too without being pretentious. It's utterly readable and disgestible and will you have flicking pages. There are passages of wonderful comedy and passages of raw emotion that punches you in the gut. Amazing, quite unusual and deserves to be a big bestseller.
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tragically hysterical,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Paperback)
I had been warned the book would literally lose the plot after the first few chapters, so relished the early parts, waiting for it to deteriorate. It never did for me. I read the entire thing, notes, acknowledgements et al and loved it. Yes it does ramble but Eggers writes as he thinks which I found totally engrossing. His often subtle references to his relationship with his brother were gutting, contrasting to his aggressive, laddish, but hilarious accounts of life in his 20s. To me, the book is brave, self-conscious and was like living inside his head for a few days; which is why over editing would have ruined it. In spite of the apparent arrogance of the title, I think Eggers would be genuinely bemused that anyone had actually spent half an hour giving discussing his book on this web site. A word of advice - definitely read the notes afterwards, they put a lot of things into perspective.
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