Dave Eggers, along with Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace, is considered one of the most influential and dazzling postmodern writers of the early 21st century. He is known for his brainy sense of humor, his pop-culture references, and his extensive use of appendices, lists, charts, and other miscellanea. Eggers exploded into the literary world with the publication of A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS (2000), a semi-fictionalized memoir about the death of his parents and his founding of more...
Dave Eggers, along with Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace, is considered one of the most influential and dazzling postmodern writers of the early 21st century. He is known for his brainy sense of humor, his pop-culture references, and his extensive use of appendices, lists, charts, and other miscellanea. Eggers exploded into the literary world with the publication of A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS (2000), a semi-fictionalized memoir about the death of his parents and his founding of a magazine in San Francisco while taking care of his younger brother. Hailed as a postmodern CATCHER IN THE RYE, it became an instant bestseller with young, savvy readers, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Since his smash debut Eggers has built an impressive literary empire out of his wry, hipper-than-thou, metafictional aesthetic. His literary journal, McSweeney's, has grown from a humble black-and-white publication to a polymorphic extravaganza, featuring peerless design and the fiction of the most irreverent and inventive writers of the generation. McSweeney's has also become a prolific independent publisher, publishing the book-review magazine THE BELIEVER as well as work by such idiosyncratic writers and literary darlings as Lydia Davis, Lawrence Weschler, Nick Hornby, and George Saunders. Eggers also edits and helped found THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING series, a testament to his stature in the world of unorthodox and experimental writing. Since AHWOSG (as he refers to his first novel), Eggers has published two novels and a collection of short stories, though none of them have achieved the same meteoric success. He is married to the writer Vendela Vida, and lives in San Francisco.less...
Ian wrote a review on A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
A little disjointed, but I guess that's part of the beauty of it. Personally, I thought some of the "Hey! Check it out! This is a novel and I'm being self-conscious" elements were really kind of bothersome, but mostly I thought it was really engaging if only because I would sometimes stay up an hour or two after I should have gone to sleep. Also, any book that can make me laugh out loud is usually a winner. The part where Dave talks about addressing gifts to Toph at Christmas caused what might be the most uproarious laughter I've ever undergone while reading a book. I read it over. I read it out loud to Jenny, and laughed continuously for a good six or seven minutes. Overall, I prefer "You Shall Know Our Velocity" and I don't think I love this book as much as everyone else I know does, but I really really liked it a lot.
A little disjointed, but I guess that's part of the beauty of it. Personally, I thought some of the "Hey! Check it out! This is a novel and I'm being self-conscious" elements were really kind of bothersome, but mostly I thought it was really engaging if only because I would sometimes stay up an hour or two after I should have gone to sleep. Also, any book that can make me laugh out loud is usually a winner. The part where Dave talks about addressing gifts to Toph at Christmas caused what might be the most uproarious laughter I've ever undergone while reading a book. I read it over. I read it out loud to Jenny, and laughed continuously for a good six or seven minutes. Overall, I prefer "You Shall Know Our Velocity" and I don't think I love this book as much as everyone else I know does, but I really really liked it a lot.