The Review of Contemporary Fiction

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Amy Havel

Dave Eggers. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Simon & Schuster, 2000. 375 pp. $23.00.

Yes, the title does make some startling claims, but for the most part, Eggers meets them. “Based on a true story,” much is made in the preface regarding the book as a memoir with certain facts altered for various purposes. In this front matter, Eggers truly goes out of his way in the witty, self-referential style that his literary journal McSweeney’s is known for, explaining, accounting for, and commenting on the “story,” which is a recounting of his parents’ deaths and his subsequent life raising his younger brother Toph. Although I am a fan of McSweeney’s and I find Eggers’s editorial innovations momentous, I did feel some relief in seeing the style of storytelling used in the body of the book unhampered by the otherwise excellent McSweeney’s tone.

When Eggers explains his recent history, he does so with a humorous bend that draws on the questionable role into which he was put: being a guardian to an eight-year-old child after such a traumatic loss is not funny, but the author is able to quell certain images of their struggle to maintain a “normal” family life that prove the bizarreness of the situation. His fear of leaving Toph with a babysitter, his attempts to supply balanced meals and a clean household, and his efforts to give vaguely mature advice are all presented with a desperate hilarity that works, page after page.

The more obvious experiments with postmodern devices (for example, Eggers’s convincing a suicidal friend of his necessity in the story) do not succeed as well as the more free-flowing attempts to describe the grief and struggle that show through the more “entertaining” parts of the author’s life. However, there is no doubt about the range of Eggers’s talent and a short review can do little to illuminate this kind of literary work. Firsthand reading is required, immediately. [Amy Havel]