For starters, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (AHWSG for short) is a fantastic title which immediately caught my attention. It also made me suspicious that the book would fail to live up to my expectations. Fortunately, in addition to a clever title, the book has intriguing cover art so I went ahead and bought it anyway.
Dave Eggars is a clever author who is well aware that he is not actually as clever as he presumes to be, but presumes it anyway. His story begins painfully as the author and his siblings suffer the death of both parents to different cancers in less than a year. What follows is a memoir documenting how the author moved on with his life while learning to be responsible for not just his own life, but his younger brother Toph's as well. I found the relationship between the author and Toph to be the most interesting part of the book. Toph is the source of all Eggars' greatest joys and deepest fears.
Eggars' writing is self absorbed in a playful way. He dares to write down the things that we all think to ourselves about ourselves, but would never dare to say out loud; most of the time it works for him.
The result is a memoir that not only chronicles what happened in the author's life but reveals just how cool the author thought he was when the events were happening.
I have seen a lot written about the "clever" introduction to the book, but I am not commenting on it because I did not particularly enjoy it. What works stylistically in the book crosses the line into "cutesy" in the intro in my opinion. If you pick up this book and don't like the intro, don't give up on it. Skip it and move into the memoir.
Overall a very enjoyable read with interesting characters. It is a memoir, but reads like fiction.
1 comment:
I agree that the introduction of this book is not nearly as good as people make it out to be. I actually almost didn't read it because I wasn't charmed by the introduction.
The book was good. I appreciated it and the honesty of the author.
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