A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

So I was going to start doing book reviews over the summer, even sketched a few out in my old moleskine (since disposed of) and somehow couldn't find the energy to put them up here. Pretty weak.

I've been meaning to read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius for a long time, since before I read You Shall Know Our Velocity!. It always cost too much at Powell's, and was checked out at our library. So I finally recalled it a week ago. And I am here to briefly inform you that you need to read it. Need. You know I wouldn't say that lightly. I've never even told anyone they need to listen to any album, some particular songs yes, but never an artist or album. So please believe me when I tell you that to be a member of our generation, you must read this book. This book is from our older brother Dave Eggers; a call-to-arms from the next evolution of Holden Caulfield. This novel is all-encompassing, all-pervading, all-true. It is everything you need to hear, exactly as you need to hear it. It is post-media, post-sensory over-saturation, post-cynicism. It is the manifesto for a group who know this is all bullshit, and want to transcend, but know their limitations, see their pride and self-aggrandizement, feel the pull of duty to family and friends and believe they can fulfill this, and beyond. That they are golden gods, capable of feats not yet seen, ready to will their dreams into existence and form. This book is a human, an extraordinary human exposed, cut and made real in order to summon you to his side. It is all bullshit and completely bullshit free. It is everything.






The story follows Dave as he raises his much-younger brother after both his parents die in short succession. He struggles with their loss, their shortcomings, as he becomes their replacement for his brother Toph. He attempts to be the super-parent while starting Might magazine, that which will reveal his generation to itself, will sound the horn for an age ready to be real and strong. You will laugh at his anecdotes with his brother and feel his righteous rage as he struggles between impulses to tear the world apart and become the world-healer, the broad-shouldered one who takes care of his friends, his brothers and sister, his life. Yet throughout he is aware of his actions shaping the story he is making, is cognizant of the artifice he is creating, is self-rebuking yet sure that he is doing the right thing, sure that while it may appear to injure him and the people he cares about, it is a blood-letting, a sacrament to move on and reach the heights of which they are capable. This book is not perfect, it drags in a few places, but it is closer than anything to the Great American Novel than I have ever read, because it is closest to the Great American Life as anything I have ever read. We are orphans, we are triumphant, we have no history, we have no future, we are what the world wishes to be. Pick up a copy.