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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
DAVE EGGERS

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
1203 reviews (2000) (496p)
Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction Finalist
New York TimesĀ® Best Nonfiction Books
TIME Magazine Best Nonfiction Books
ALA Notable Books - Nonfiction Finalist
Amazon 2000 Customer Top 50

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Book Description
The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read in paperback for decades to come. The Vintage edition includes a new appendix by the author.


Amazon.com Review
Dave Eggers is a terrifically talented writer; don't hold his cleverness against him. What to make of a book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story? For starters, there's a good bit of staggering genius before you even get to the true story, including a preface, a list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book," and a 20-page acknowledgements section complete with special mail-in offer, flow chart of the book's themes, and a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of a stapler (helpfully labeled "Here is a drawing of a stapler:").

But on to the true story. 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, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-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 manically fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.)

The book is also, perhaps less successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, Gen-X 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 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.H.W.O.S.G. 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. Currently the editor of the footnote-and-marginalia-intensive journal McSweeney's (the last issue featured an entire story by David Foster Wallace printed tinily on its spine), 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


Other Award Winning Books by Dave Eggers
Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers
207 reviews (2016) (400p) () () ()
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
The Circle by Dave Eggers
3852 reviews (2013) (504p) (Amazon Top100) (NYT100)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
326 reviews (2012) (328p) (Amazon Top10Lit) (Amazon Top100) (PW Fiction) (NYT100) (NYT Top10) (Kirkus Top25) (MK Top) (NBA) (NYTimes) (Amazon) (ALA)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
338 reviews (2009) (352p) (ALA Non)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
What Is the What by Dave Eggers
418 reviews (2006) (386p) (NBCCA) (TIME) (Amazon)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page

Dave Eggers Award Stats
Major Prize* Nominations 6  
Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* 4  
Pulitzer Prize Wins 0  
Pulitzer Prize Nominations 1 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius ·  
National Book Critics Circle Award Wins 0  
National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations 1 What Is the What ·  
National Book Award Wins 0  
National Book Award Nominations 1 A Hologram for the King ·  
Man Booker Prize Wins 0  
Man Booker Prize Nominations 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Wins 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations 0  

*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award

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