A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | 
 enlarge | Author: Dave Eggers
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Rating:  917 reviews
Sales Rank: 1774
Media: Paperback
Pages: 496
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0375725784
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.92092
EAN: 9780375725784
ASIN: 0375725784
Publication Date: February 13, 2001
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Condition: .Reprint. ACCEPTABLE with noticeable wear to cover and pages. Binding intact. We offer a no hassle guarantee on all our items. Orders are generally shipped no later than next business day. We offer a no hassle guarantee on all our items.
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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
Product 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 The Mature Artist... November 26, 2008
J. Schell (San Diego, California)
I've heard it said that the mature artist does not bring attention to his work. Also, it has been said that an intelligent artist not break the rules merely to break the rules, but does so only to underline or add an exclamation point to his art.
There are flashes of brilliance in this, and in his other works. However those flashes are far too infrequent and the writing just too sophomoric for this book to be notable to anyone who cares about literature beyond it's capacity for mindless, self-aggrandizing entertainment.
 A dizzying book November 17, 2008
Karen Hyams
There is an image at the beginning of this book, of two brothers driving along Highway 1. They are flying on the edge of the world, going too fast, with only the guardrail between them and the ocean below, and they feel dizzy and free and reckless. It's an image that captures part of the soul of the book. There is another part of the book, that I think more of as the body, where there are two boys living together, one boy older than the other and trying to be the parent. He feeds the younger boy peanut butter and doesn't know anything about laundry, and wishes he could get laid more.
And the thing that makes this book live up to its audacious title is that the older boy goes about the whole thing, the project or experiment or act of shepherding his brother safely into adulthood, with complete intensity and seriousness. He does it while he is raising himself with equal intensity, building his own life.
It is outrageous to have written a memoir when you were in your mid-20's, more outrageous still to have been absolutely right to have done so.
I really liked it, but it's not for everyone - 4 1/2 November 16, 2008
An Anonymous Child
Maybe I'm judging this differently because I'd heard nothing about this book before randomly picking it up at the library (I thought the name "Eggers" was funny). I didn't have high expectations or anything, but I... actually really liked it...
"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" has some wonderfully special moments to it. First off, Eggers writes in a really casual, easy-to-read manner, and pretty hilariously. Too many memoirs about sad things focus too heavily on the sad things. Eggers goes at the lighter side of things, looking through a slightly more realistic microscope. I get sick of memoirs (or books, for that matter), where realistic/funny parts are far and few between. That's not how life is. Conversations aren't always deep and meaningful (and how can a person writing a memoir even remember conversations so clearly? At least Eggers made it clear that he half-invented some conversations), sometimes they're shallow, pointless, and silly.
There are other interesting things to AHWOSG. The descriptions of wannabe hipster young adults in the 90s may not appeal to a lot of readers, but it's pretty entertaining to look at this hipster attitude and the San Francisco culture. Again, a lot depends on the reader's personal opinions. If you're not big on guys just telling you about their real life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the boring and the meaningful, you may not want to read a memoir about exactly that - Eggers' life.
What I like in the end is that it's all very readable. Eggers turns his life almost into satire but still makes everything seem funny and true. I laughed out loud at too many parts in this book (and the prelude is truly genius). There's a lot which younger readers (present) can relate to, whether it's the shying away from responsibility too often, the insecurities, the randomness, the need to belong, or just the dumb things people do and have to go through. The book may be longish, but it goes by quickly and while the ending is sort of random (kind of like the whole book), by the end, I felt like this was my life or at least that I was part of the story.
Maybe it depends on who is reading AHWOSG. I really liked it, enough to recommend it to friends. I can see my parents thinking it's stupid. I can see my sister laughing hysterically throughout the funny parts and crying during the important ones. Is this a grand work of literature? No. It's a chill, funny memoir that tells a pretty sad and interesting story. It's well written, honest, funny, and enjoyable. Also an easy read.
So it's a pretty warm-bordering-hot recommendation for younger readers (late teens) or readers okay with the style. I'd suggest older readers of a generation above Eggers and more investigate thoroughly before reading AHWOSG. It's still a great book (memoir), but some may not quite appreciate it. For that, a 4 1/2 star rating.
Worst Book I've Read in a While November 14, 2008
S. Powell (Texas)
This book is a pile of pretentious drivel. Eggers is so self-absorbed, he has lost contact with the real world. I haven't read something so bad in a long time. I should have stopped after the first section concerning his parents' deaths, because it just goes way, way downhill from there. I want the hours I spent reading this book back.
A.H.B.W.O.S.G. Review October 23, 2008
Y. Danieli
At age 21, Dave Eggers's mother and father die of unrelated cancers within just 5 weeks of each other. The memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, follows Dave's journey as both a young adult in search of love and freedom, and as a "single mother" to his newly-inherited little brother, Toph.
The memoir opens with a witty list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of this Book", where in a borderline-sarcastic manner, Eggers dismisses the importance and relevance of half the book. Even in the preface, (which was read, despite his suggestions), his clever and ferocious voice bursts through the pages, and straight into the imagination of the reader.
In A.H.W.O.S.G., Eggers doesn't just sketch general ideas of what he experiences, he vividly paints a picture of specific life events; all his thoughts are splayed out on the pages, as if nothing was cut back. The reader can then enter his head, and hear his inner-thoughts, feel his raw emotions. "We wash our hands and come over... -maybe we forgot to wash our hands- and lean over in the usual way, holding her arm, all while her eyes are following us, at least on eye is following us..." (342). His brutally honest story-telling, yet maybe not-so-honest dialogue, will astonish and entertain any reader.
The beginning sections of the book describe Dave's mother's slow passing: both in-depth and disturbing, the reader automatically feels uncomfortable yet captured by the twisted, almost overly-descriptive imagery, "The tumor is rotten fruit, graying at the edges. Or the insects' hive, something festering and black and alive, fuzzy on its sides..." (32).
Eggers weaves different writing styles in and out of the book, "spicing up" the already expansive and intense work. Often out of cynicism, flowcharts, script, and sketches are added, including those of staplers and house space to slide in socks. Dialogue varies from long, deep conversations, (often accusations), to simple greeting exchanges amongst friends.
Also, Eggers provides breaks from intense, "heartbreaking", often rant-like passages. His choice of events may seem random, but always add further entry into his mind. Painful and depressing events are easier to cope with with Eggers' comedic easiness and sarcasm. But he becomes sullen by injecting feelings like paranoia and caution into what would otherwise be considered "simple" choices.
When Eggers leaves his brother with a babysitter, (something not normally seeming so terrifying), a reader is overflowed with shared feelings with Eggers. "This is stupid. We don't need this kind of risk...But I have to do this. There is no risk. But there is risk. But the risk is worth it. I'm so, so evil." (126) Without telling the reader he is distressed, the reader knows, especially after frantically following his train of thought.
As made obvious after completion of this book, Eggers used all events he viewed as important to his life. Even ones that put him in a bad light were used, "You have been determined, then and since, to get this down, to render this time, to take that terrible winter and write with it what you hope will be some heartbreaking thing" (119).
The voice, writing style, and expanded incidents in this memoir truly makes it a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
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