September 6, 2011

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers


What, it cannot have been a month since I've finished a book. There was definitely a graphic novel I read in a day and decided against mentioning. But was that really it?

I saw this in the library years ago and was intrigued by the title, but didn't even look at it. Since then, I've become a fan of Mcsweeneys and have been to the pirate store in San Francisco. I really wanted to see the movie Eggers co-wrote with his wife, but never got around to it. I guess I managed to see one film he wrote. Anyway, this book happened because Kelly found it while going through some of his stuff at his parents' house and brought it home for me. I had absolutely no clue what it was about. If you don't know either, it's about how his parents died of cancer within a month of each other, and he and his sister, both in their twenties, raised their little brother, who was 7 when his parents died. So there's the heartbreak. The genius is in Eggers' style of writing, which is kind of self-conscious and hipstery and definitely unique. There's even interest in reading the copyright page. I liked it a lot but found myself criticizing some of his more irresponsible parenting techniques, plus disliking the pretentiousness of his hipster youth magazine.

I just saw this in my unused Amazon Associates sidebar and felt compelled to add it:


*Update November 15, 2011: I finally saw Away We Go, the movie I referred to never getting around to watching. I watched it on Netflix one night while I was home alone. I really liked it!


1 comment:

brie said...

I can recommend "Away We Go", the movie he did with his wife. It's pretty freaking cute. I've never read this book, but have always sorta meant to.