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    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story
    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story
    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story
    Audiobook13 hours

    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story

    Written by Dave Eggers

    Narrated by Dion Graham

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 26, 2010
    ISBN9781440790690
    Author

    Dave Eggers

    Dave Eggers is the founder of McSweeney’s, a quarterly journal and website (www.mcsweeneys.net), and his books include You Shall Know Our Velocity, How We Are Hungry, Short Short Stories, What is the What, and the bestselling A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. His work has appeared in the New Yorker and Ocean Navigator. He is the recipient of the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a 2001 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Northern California.

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    Reviews for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

    3.5/5

    117 ratings99 reviews

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    • 1/5
      I tried to like this book, really and truly I did. I thought it would be clever and unusual and brilliantly worded like a David Foster Wallace book can be. After all, I'd unfortunately paid good money for it. And it's not easy to be so critical about an autobiographical book in which the author's parents die and leave him raising his much younger brother - you really want to root for this book and the author behind it.But it's awful. It doesn't matter whether Eggers really believes he's clever or is merely posturing as such for a lark. I'm sorry to be harsh, but if Mr. Eggers is anything in person like he is on the page, people must flee the room when they see him moving their way at a cocktail party. I can't explain why I felt compelled to finish this dull and tedious book, other than I felt it simply *had* to get better at some point. It doesn't.Do yourself a HUGE favor: pass this one by. I wish Mr. Eggers and his family all the best, but a decent turn of phrase once in a while does not an author make. Don't believe anyone who would have you think that critics of this book simply don't 'get' it. In this case, there is no substance whatsoever and precious little in the smoke-and-mirrors department, either.If you're looking for clever and/or funny, you'd be better off with Richard Russo's fabulous "Straight Man", Tom Perrotta's "Little Children", Katherine Dunn's "Geek Love", John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy Of Dunces" or a thousand other books I could rattle off. Really, ANY book is better than AHWOSG. It's that bad. Sorry. :)

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Really amazing look at the way that people remember their lives and relate to their families. Some seriously funny stuff!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      After I started reading this I wasn't able to stop. Its incredible personal sadness and lively social criticism is a solid combination worth the length of the book.
    • 2/5
      I have to admit I gave up after chapter 3. The narration is excellent and the author is clearly very skilled but there is no story. It is like a tv show that tries to make a big drama out of something trivial like renovating your house. Every dull detail is made into a point in its own right, and that gets tiring very quickly.
    • 4/5
      I *almost* completely agree with the title. It is a heartbreaking (and sometimes hilarious) book of genius (not quite staggering, but not shabby at all). Eggers keeps readers on their toes with changes of pace and tone, by sometimes skipping around in the story, and by having characters break the third wall a few times--but somehow it all works. I couldn't put it down, and now that I'm done I wish I had a sequel or an afterward so I know how Dave and Toph ended up. (Thank goodness for McSweeney's and Wikipedia.) I can already tell that Dave's voice will be breaking into my reveries for weeks to come. I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      This book was a hilarious joy ride. :D
    • 4/5
      Once I got past the enormously long sentences, this book is a charmer. So far, the protagonist (Dave Eggers), age 22, loses both of his parents suddenly to cancer, and becomes the guardian of his 7 year old brother. He outlines their menu (lots of Ore-Ida fries), diagrams the way to maximize the distance you can slide on hardwoods in your socks (seriously), and they have food fights in the house. It's sweet but not too sweet, and whole, and handles death in a real way, the way books never handle it, the way I think when someone around me dies, the thoughts I would never say out loud. The book goes on over the course of a few years, as Dave and his brother figure out their lives.
    • 5/5
      Apparently everyone else loves this book as much as I did. I haven't read up on the controversy surrounding the autobiographical/fiction issue. I don't really care - it could be 100% fictional and still be a good story.
    • 5/5
      This book was such a fast read. Eggars has a great narrative ability and the best and funniest part is that his internal dialog is that of everyones so it seams even more hillarious! I strongly recommend this book!
    • 5/5
      I think this book may have changed my life, yes.
    • 2/5
      Eh. Not my cup of tea. Bonus points for inventive ways of breaking out what's expected by the form, but in the end I found the tale too self-absorbed for me to relate.
    • 1/5
      Up to page 200; okay. Afterwards it's a waste of time.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book so much when it came out. I read his two following books, which just annoyed me with their "I am a hipster so achingly self aware I can barely function" -ness. I hear his newest is better, so maybe I will give him another shot.
    • 4/5
      This is a hard one for me to rate. AHWSG is the hip 90's stream of consciousness. I wonder what Virginia Woolf would think. It is a memoir of John Eggers early 20s when his parents passed away and he had to start raising his brother. Eggers admits to being a fatalist. His imagination turns every minor event into a major catastrophe. For instance, he leaves his brother with a babysitter and can't enjoy himself because he imagines his brother being abused and murdered while he is gone. But while all this is happening he will often get distracted. I found his writing interesting because it reminded me of my mind. I call it my pin ball thoughts that just ping all over and get faster and faster till I can't sleep or focus on anything else. But in the same way it was this part of the writing that annoyed me since I find my pin ball thoughts so frustrating. I've figured out that not everyone goes from A-Z while skipping everything in between so it was nice to observe someone else going through it.The other part I enjoyed was Eggers narcissism as he tried to become something big and important...but without working or being boring or normal. Didn't every 20 year old in 1997 think they should really be 1 of the 7 on Real World? His fascination with his perceived uniqueness also tied into his obsession with death. All his imagined deaths were big huge ordeals that would be newsworthy.I do want to read other Eggers. I just don't think his novels can be written in the same manner.
    • 4/5
      This is a refreshing and honest memoir in a genre where the reader often wonders if truth exists at all. 22-year-old Dave Eggers is forced to grow up quickly when his parents die from cancer within 5 weeks of each other, and he is left to care for his 7-year-old brother, Toph. Dave candidly shares the challenges that he faced while securing a future for Toph and simultaneously finding his own path in life. It may have be an unconventional household, and one that hardly ever got cleaned, but love was in full supply. His story is completely egocentric, but it is also hilarious, emotional, and witty. Throughout the text, the author provides his own criticisms of himself and his writing, so the reader is left with nothing to criticize. The book was uniquely presented: Eggers begins with a preface describing how to enjoy the book, even recommending sections to skip if the reader is "short on time." He ends the book with an addendum that points out sections that are embellished or altered for the sake of interesting storytelling. I thought the narrative went on was too long, and the informal writing style isn't for everyone, but I quite enjoyed it overall.
    • 1/5
      I only listened to the sample; some of us have experienced this ordeal and don’t want to live it unless we must again.
    • 4/5
      An impressive, but also self-indulgent work. Reading Eggers is rarely dull!
    • 5/5
      Like everyone else on earth, I enjoyed this book a great deal. Really. I suppose it's sometimes hard to remember, what with all the hype surrounding Eggers and everything he does. However, in his attempts to make cool clubs of his friends into powerful artisitic commando units, he and I are similar. In the end end, it's just original and fun to read.
    • 4/5
      I liked it, despite the overstatement of the title (on both counts). I liked the frenetic pacing, the cathartic rambling peppered with the immediacy of random observations/musings interrupting but not derailing the train of thought, the postmodernist(?) arguments with the character John, and yes, even the solopsism.I'm sensing a pattern of fascination with fictionalized/amalgomized personal tragedy by Eggers, between this, What is the What, and his (newest?) book on Katrina victims, which I am interested to read now.
    • 5/5
      Crazy good memoir. Addictive. Beautiful. Uncomfortable. Epic?
    • 5/5
      As entertaining and life-affirming as a book that deals largely with lingering deaths, orphans, suicidal friends and miscellaneous other major calamities can be. Mr Eggers somehow catches those fleeting, horrible but strangely hilarious thoughts that race through the recesses of all our minds, but we would never be quick enough (or possibly brave enough) to put down on paper. Honestly, I'd have given it a 5, but the frisbee stories got a little old. A definite recommend.
    • 5/5
      So turned to a very different monologue! This was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers and polished that off. One great book but not for the conventional. To me the key question of any book does it allow me to live in the fictive imagination if yes then well on the way to being a good book. How this is achieved is then a matter of the writer's art. But dear reader our imaginations work differently... so is the art poor or not speaking to our condition? It spoke to mine
    • 4/5
      Walking past a charity stall this book caught my eye.I realised the title was ironic when I saw the author, unknown to me, went by the name of Dave, more amusing for the fact that three of the testimonials on the dust cover are provided by literary heavyweights whose first name is given as the full David. Intrigued, I invested the paltry purchase price demanded for this pristine hardback of £0.50 (35c).I was quite taken aback by the number of reviews for this mystery book and the polarised nature of them, nothing less than love or hate not only for the work but also for the author.Worse, I have an inbuilt aversion to the very mention of Gen X/Gen Y or PoMo; I mean seriously, no shades of grey there then, and those terms are liberally spread in reviews, especially the more negative ones.So, Eggers must be some kind of pretentious, privileged, spoiled brat yet also managing to succeed against enormous odds of losing both parents to cancer whilst barely out of his teens, and assuming the terrifying and weighty responsibility of caring for and nurturing a much younger sibling. Something doesn't stack up. I approached the book with heightened interest and an open mind for better or worse.After enduring an uncomfortable, and apparently self indulgent and lengthy introduction, I sensed a challenge to the reader, almost a confrontation to pre judge and be proved wrong. It's a strange thing, acknowleded by the author as such, to put out of context outtakes and editorial cullings at the beginning of the book, lest they be forgotten or become irrelevant by the end. Still, an insight into the writer's 'Gen X PoMo' quirkiness was gained, though little of the reality of the more contemporary prose to be revealed once the memoir got underway, and the motive remains unclear other than as an ironic sop to expectations of those familiar with his other published work (which I am not).So, is the story heartbreaking? Of course, how could it not be? Following the trauma of the death of his parents, heartbreaks abound in the form of the near fatal accident and uncertain recovery of a close friend, and the on off suicidal tendencies of another friend with whom Eggers has to wrestle with how much tough love, how much bullshit, how much anger, how much bluff calling, is enough.Yet Eggers never seeks sympathy nor sets out to break the reader's heart.Eggers certainly gives of himself, and not moreso than to his little brother Christopher, known as Toph, whom he assumes full time care of following the early death of their mother. Eggers deep love, admiration and sense of loss for his mother is an ever present value and Toph is the beneficiary of his love to burn. The death of his father coming months before that of his mother is less of a defining event and the relationship between father and son is more distant, the weaknessess and failings of his father more deeply felt in comparison with the certitude of his mother.It is this genetic stoicism which enables Eggers to not only succeed in bringing Toph up, though at times chaotically, he was in his early 20s after all, but also to doggedly persist with being the guiding light of a small, determined bunch of like minds in publishing a satrical periodical.To appreciate the sheer scale of Eggers' achievements through much adversity and to appreciate the minutae of life in his circumstances, the daily challenges of providing, paying bills and survival, through responsibility assumed not sought, it is, of course, essential to read the book.Eggers frequently writes from his consciousness and this, I think is where some readers mistake his thoughts for reality. He often talks to himself through brotherly and paternal rants with Toph or imaginary conversations, and it is in these where any hints of bitterness or self pity arise, after all who couldn't feel similarly, and yet there is no suggestion whatsoever that these inner thoughts are ever revealed in his actions or his dealings with other people, even those who may deserve to hear some self serving diatribe. Indeed the opposite is true, most obviously at Toph's schools where Eggers abjectly fails to seek any advantage in his circumstances to gain preferential treatment and certainly empathy is the last thing on the minds of various landlords in his quests for a decent place to live with his brother.Eggers may yearn to go out and paint the town red but his fraternal instincts become paternal and he is suprisingly conservative in his values.Perhaps the most uncomfortable revelations are in his sentiments towards old people, especially those who display signs of enjoying life, though I believe he is conciously portraying a phobia due to trauma and suppressed anger of realisation that his own parents could never achieve that elderly state as this trait flies in the face of his devotion to his sadly decaying mother.Later in the book there is a passage concerning the fate of the ashes of his mother for which crticism and hasty judgement has been levelled in some reviews. In fact the reasons for why a burial was not arranged following her passing is fully explained and understandable, Eggers also feels a futility in a showy, quasi religious event, for which he can hardly be blamed, especially given the paltry turn out for his father's funeral, though he spends little time blaming God for his or their plight.In time it is Eggers alone, rather than the older siblings one might expect to take charge, who returns over the thousands of miles to the erstwhile family home to track down the ashes and then finds himself unexpectedly attached to the cremains of his mother until his mind clears to enable a solution.The closing section of the book, which may well be of near staggering genius, reveals that, having seemingly moved on, and in a moment of perfect peace shared with Toph, the scars which run deep reopen, the concerns of appearing different, the memories of good times and the worst of times, subliminally or conciously are omnipresent and forever shape the here and now.Eggers' story is as worthy of being told as any other memoir I can think of. I am left with an impression that if he has any genius it is for his self awareness and genuine humility whilst appearing to some as self serving and arrogant.I suspect Eggers is as satisfied and comfortable with that paradox, as am I that I instinctively decided to pick up and then read this very fine and highly commendable book.
    • 5/5
      When you were young did you ever wonder what would happen if your parents died? I did.When I was about 15 or 16 my dad became quite ill; he was hospitalized for a while and almost died. We knew that the possibility of is death was a very real thing. The tension was staggering. I was the oldest of six kids. What do you think the second thought on my mind was at the time? ~"What if something happened to Mom too?"Thinking back on it now I can't believe that there wasn't some sort of plan in place and I really believe there wasn't. By that point we either had no grandparents living or just one who was old and very ill. We had one aunt on my mom's side and she was divorced and pretty frazzled with the raising of her only son. We had one uncle on my dad's side who seemed like a possibility as they were raising three kids as old or older than myself; but we weren't really close to them emotionally and I can't imagine the financial burden of raising six kids on top of the emotional strain.Really...who's going to raise SIX kids that aren't their responsibility?I was certain that I'd do it. I really thought I could. I was also certain that the only possible solution I could imagine was for us kids to be split up among different people; family...close family friends... I was determined that if that had to happen due to my young age, I would work to be able to take custody of everyone as soon as I was old enough.Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius explores a very similar situation that really happened.Yes, he works very hard to convince the reader that it is fictional, at least only based on truth; his truth. My friend and I both feel that he doth protest too much though. We believe it is autobiographical. At the age of 21 Dave and his older siblings expected their mother's death; sooner than later. What they didn't expect was a death-sentence-diagnosis for their dad that resulted in his almost instantaneous and previously unexpected death.Their youngest sibling was 7 years old. It was decided that Dave would take on most of the responsibility of raising Christopher ("Toph").Dave gives word to feelings all parents experience at one time or another. It seems that perhaps he experiences them more frequently though. As the mom of five kids ranging in age from 5 to 15 I admit to having experienced most of the concerns he explores. In truth, I've wondered as he did whether or not something horrifying might happen to one of my children due to the awful selfishness I've exhibited by needing a bit of "me time" or "us time" for my husband and me. Overall, I've always been able to keep those feelings from ruining life for all of us. They are crippling thoughts but I've never allowed them to cripple me. Can you imagine the "case" I'd be if I did. Five kids, remember?So, Dave explores all of this.He does so with a book that is mostly written as a string-of-consciousness-sort-of-thing. My brother pointed out that such writing can become exhausting or annoying. I felt that due to the subject matter it really worked though. I liked it. I could feel what he was feeling.Dave really cornered my market when he was thinking about how lucky Toph was to be hanging out with him and how lucky he was to be exposed to the great music Dave enjoyed... Oh yeah. He even explored the idea of homeschooling Toph because he was envious of how much time the teachers spent with him.As a mom who homeschooled all of our kids until our oldest was finished with sixth grade, and then some others longer, I attempted to expose our kids to the best of everything from all time periods: books, movies, music. There is so much more to life than today's available choices. Still, one worries about recreating yourself via your children (if we're honest). That is not something we wanted to have happen. We only want for them to be well rounded individuals who can related to people of all ages.Here is a quote that expresses part of Dave's obvious concern:"...when someone noticed him (Toph) for being him(self), we would all have to stand back a second and see him for what he actually was, at least superficially: a seventh-grade boy. Of course, he had a difficult time discerning, himself. He had recently made this clear, when he and Marny and I were driving back from the beach. She and I were talking about one of the new interns, who, at twenty-two, was much younger than we had assumed~"Really?" said Toph. "I though he was our age."Sure, mistakes were made in the raising of Toph.We ALL make mistakes. All. The. Time.The real point is the great love fostered between the two. They grew and they grew together. They were a team, united. They made the best of a horrifying situation. they made it work.I appreciated Eggers' raw honesty.Oh...I also appreciated the sense of humor he exhibited in the titling of his book.He acknowledged the fact that everyone who would read his book would be able to pick it apart. They'd be able to find a million and one things wrong with it; and so he poked fun at the self-inflated idea of writing a book about yourself, about your own loss, and expecting others to read it.I read it.I liked it.
    • 4/5
      I found this mostly autobiographical story of Eggers taking it upon himself to care for his very young brother truly fantasticly written and engaging.But, my book club read it and I was the only one who liked it.
    • 5/5
      This book is so phenomenal. It's almost perfect, and the title isn't an exaggeration. It's Eggers's autobiography, but it's mostly concerned with the years following the deaths of his parents, who both died from cancer around thirty days apart from each other. Eggers was fairly young when this happened, somewhere in his late teens to twenties. Anyway, he had to take care of his younger brother Toph after that, who was, what, eight years old? I think so. Anyway, the book alternates between sad and hilarious. Eggers writes the way people think, irrationally, absurdly, self-consciously. It's hard to explain exactly what the book is like. Oh well, I'll just say, it's probably the best autobiography I've ever read.
    • 5/5
      In some ways, a bit of an editorial mess, but it is a wonderful, glorious mess that you wouldn't want any other way. Well, okay, there's this part in the middle about MTV that could go. But it's still great, and is the only book that can make me laugh out loud in public and not care that people are staring. The last paragraph is just pitch perfect.
    • 2/5
      Do not attempt to read the first chapter of this book while eating.
    • 2/5
      A.H.W.O.S.G. is a well written memoir, it just was not for me. At its core there is a protagonist that is shaped by tragedy, decides to live his life trying to escape the consequences and responsibilities that life brings his way. As the book unfolded, I realized that I neither admired the main character nor connected with his mistakes and overall cared little about him one way or another. While individual paragraphs were witty and amusing, I soon found myself skimming chapters wondering when I could start another book.
    • 1/5
      In general it is a mistake to scorn a book one has not read, but I’ll make an exception here. I took me less than 15 minutes to decide that this product is a pile of poo.First, there’s the arch title: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Does he mean it or is he inviting the reader to share some irony? Does the reader care?Then there is the weird succession of bizarre prefaces and intros. On the very first page the “Rules and suggestions for enjoyment of this book” are essentially an invitation to ignore practically all of it. Is this phoney self-deprecation designed to make one warm to the writer?Later there are “Acknowledgements” broken into sections with headings like “The painfully, endlessly self-conscious book aspect”, which begins, “This is probably obvious enough already”. Love the “probably”! We also get the “Self-aggrandisement as art form aspect”. Thumbing through the text more in bemusement than hope, one finds that nothing grabs one’s attention. Eggers witters. Somebody once said that the first task of the writer is to befriend the reader. Yes, I agree, this is fundamental. Eggers, on the other hand, sets out to irritate the reader in the shortest time possible. Bad move!Narcissism only needs a mirror, not an audience. To accept this book requires nothing less than an act of faith. Not from me - life is too short to waste time indulging the ego of jerks! This one will be in the wild very soon!