A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - by Dave Eggers (Paperback)

About the Book

The literary bestseller that redefines both family and narrative for the 21st century, this moving memoir is the story 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. This 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.

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST - A "A beautifully ragged, laugh-out-loud funny and utterly unforgettable book" (San Francisco Chronicle) that redefines both family and narrative. - From the bestselling author of The Circle.

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. This 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.

Review Quotes

"A virtuosic piece of writing, a big, daring, manic-depressive stew of a book that noisily announces the debut of a talented--yes, staggeringly talented new writer." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

" Exhilarating.... Profoundly moving, occasionally angry and often hilarious.... A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is finally, a finite book of jest, which is why it succeeds so brilliantly." --The New York Times Book Review

"Eggers evokes the terrible beauty of youth like a young Bob Dylan, frothing with furious anger.... He takes us close, shows us as much as he can bear.... His book is a comic and moving witness that transcends and transgresses formal boundaries." --The Washington Post

"[F]unny, wildly intelligent.... What's consistent throughout is the full-throttle voice: the sensibility of the man who grieves his parents, who safeguards his brother, who knows that his own presence here can walk the line between 'self-conscious' and 'self-devouring." --The Boston Globe

"Eggers crafts something universal here, something raw and real and wonderful that transcends any zeitgeist and manages to deal trenchantly with 'big issues' that often prove too daunting for younger writers: mortality, youth the artifice of writing, the Zen of Frisbee. This is a beautifully ragged, laugh-out-loud funny and utterly unforgettable book." --San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

DAVE EGGERS is the author of many books, among them The Circle, The Eyes and the Impossible, The Monk of Mokha, A Hologram for the King, What Is the What, and The Museum of Rain. He is the cofounder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing and tutoring center which has inspired dozens of similar nonprofit organizations around the world, and the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publisher. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and is the recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, and the American Book Award.