“The next Jack Kerouac.” “A modern-day ‘Catcher in the Rye.'”
Author Dave Eggers is no stranger to society’s praise. Eggers is the king of ironic self-deprecation, and the title of his debut novel clearly illustrates this.
“A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” is not your average title for a novel, and a debut novel at that, but Eggers isn’t your average author. After the release of his award-winning debut, Eggers became a hero to the Gen-X crowd through his deeply personal, yet hilarious, satirical saga.
At the age of 22, 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 labor, he was appointed unofficial guardian of his eight-year-old brother, Christopher (or “Toph” as his many fans know him).
The two lived together in semi-squalor, decaying food and scattered sports equipment while Eggers worried obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters and his own health. His child-rearing strategies swung between making his brother’s upbringing manically fun to performing bizarre developmental experiments on him (case in point: His idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey’s “Hiroshima.”).
The book is also about being young, fashionable and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, hipster sort of way, naturally).
In the early ’90s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of the novel discussing his work on Might, the hipster culture of San Francisco’s South Park and his own efforts to get on to MTV’s “Real World.”
This combination of dealing with the death of two parents within a five-week span, learning to raise his younger brother despite the fact that he is really still a kid himself and all the while conquering the world with his irony and biting wit made Eggers’ debut novel a cultural sensation.
“A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” won The New York Times Book Review “Editor’s Choice,” along with the distinction of the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post and Time for “Best Book of The Year.”
Another writer known for his biting sarcasm and wit, Dave Sedaris, had high praise for Eggers’ literary tour de force. Sedaris was quoted in an interview on www.bookbrowse.com as saying, “The force and energy of this book could power a train.”
Zadie Smith, critically acclaimed author of “White Teeth,” picked “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” as one of her favorites, “because it kicks ass.”
Along with composing a novel of such high praise, Eggers also went on to develop the literary quarterly McSweeny’s after the death of his first publication, Might Magazine. Eggers also continued to raise Toph (now a college student himself) to the best of his abilities, and the two currently reside in New York City.
Now, more than two years after the release of his sizzling debut novel, Eggers has recently released his sophomore effort, “You Shall Know Our Velocity.”
Although the novel has not received the stellar reviews his first effort claimed, Eggers remains a writer of immense talent, and his second novel is worth a look.
He is currently touring the country promoting the new book, and he will be in Madison this Friday, Oct. 11, at Canterbury Booksellers on 315 W. Gorham St. at 4 p.m.
