A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Narrarated by: Dion Graham
© 2000 David K. Eggers
Dave Eggers scored a worldwide phenomenon with this memoir that topped national best-seller lists and has since become a staple for summer reading and book clubs. A compelling voice for Generation X, Eggers here recounts his early 20s, caring for his younger brother after their parents’ unexpected deaths and his endeavors in a variety of media.
“Not just for the MTV-fan age group, this is a very entertaining, well-written book.”—Booklist
Like an artifact out of a Gen-X time capsule, even a decade later
When Dave Eggers burst onto the American literary scene in 2001, his debut memoir bore a title that reeked of a Gen-X "look-at-me" stunt. Why else, sniffed crotchety literary types, would some 20-something kid dare call his book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius? The bravado! The self-indulgence! Once readers got past the posturing, they realized the book was, in fact, heartbreaking. And genius.
A Heartbreaking Work recounts how Eggers — orphaned after both his parents die from cancer — takes guardianship of his little brother, Toph. He senses that other people see him and Toph as tragic, otherworldly creatures. Sometimes, he cannot resist exploiting it. He lies, telling strangers his parents died in terrorist attacks, or that Toph took a gun to school. However, Eggers also steps up to the plate as a "father" — in quotes because he never seems quite comfortable with the term. He panics whenever he leaves Toph alone with a babysitter and worries about keeping his parents' legacy alive.
Almost a decade later, the prose's self-consciousness sounds like an artifact out of a Gen-X time capsule. When Eggers pitches himself as the "tragic person" for MTV's Real World, he sounds a smidgen too pleased with his cleverness. Chalk it up to the modern era of blogs, Facebook, Twitter and relentless reality shows — nowadays outlets for self-obsession are so universal it hardly feels clever to critique them anymore. Eggers simply beat everyone to the punch.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius has met its match in narrator Dion Graham, who channels the grief, anguish, anger and comedy in equal measure.