A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

was walking— I would say “hiking,” if we were doing anything but walking, but since we were just walking, I will not use the word “hiking,” which everyone feels compelled to use anytime they’re outside and there’s a slight incline

“Ooh, look at me, I’m Dave, I’m writing a book! With all my thoughts in it! La la la!” (Christopher Eggers)

Besides, if you are bothered by the idea of this being real, you are invited to do what the author should have done, and what authors and readers have been doing since the beginning of time:

PRETEND IT’S FICTION.

The author wishes to acknowledge that because this book is occasionally haha, you are permitted to dismiss it. The author wishes to acknowledge your problems with the title. He too has reservations.

no one, except an electorate, likes a liar.

FLOUTING

SUBLIMATION

SOLIPSISM

Now.

The author would like to acknowledge your desire to get started with the plot, the body of the book, the story.

He will get on with that story any moment now,

He acknowledges the needs and feelings of a reader, the fact that a reader only has so much time, so much patience—that seemingly endless screwing about, interminable clearing of one’s throat, can very easily look like, or even become, a sort of contemptuous stalling, a putting-off of one’s readers, and no one wants that. (Or do they?)

glasnost,

endocrine;

Harriet Tubman,

“It wasn’t your fault.” He loves that line, especially when he tacks on: “Or was it?”)

I mean, it was almost as if it was too much to happen in one day, as if a number of days had been spliced together to quickly paint a picture of an entire period of time, to create a whole-seeming idea of how we are living, without having to stoop (or rise) to actually pacing the story out.”

“You know, to be honest, though, what I see is less a problem with form, all that garbage, and more a problem of conscience. You’re completely paralyzed with guilt about relating all this in the first place, especially the stuff earlier on. You feel somehow obligated to do it, but you also know that Mom and Dad would hate it, would crucify you—

your father being in AA

unraveling,

JFKFC;

Westerberg hair.

this is 1993,

I was twelve when I realized “balls” referred to testicles, and not the two cheeks of your butt.

Then Mr. T moved in.

Ordinary People

he started cutting down all the trees.

Chainsaw Dan Snyder!

So tell me something: This isn’t really a transcript of the interview, is it? No. It’s not much like the actual interview at all, is it? Not that much, no. This is a device, this interview style. Manufactured and fake. It is.

squeezing all these things into the Q&A makes complete the transition from the book’s first half,

which is slightly less self-conscious, to the second half, which is increasingly self-devouring.

You need someone who’ll actually care about and debate the “tomahawk chop,” the Redskins and everything.

Redskins!

We’re roommates.

What’s a mahdda?

Martyr.

dyspepsia,

I am an orphan of America.

You wear snowshoes when the snow is deep and porous. The latticework within the snowshoe’s oval distributes the wearer’s weight over a wider area, in order to keep him or her from falling through the snow. So people, the connections between people, the people you know, become a sort of lattice, and the more people you know, and that know you, and know your situation and your story and your troubles or whatnot, the wider and stronger the lattice, and the less likely you are to—

Richard Milhous Nixon,

This is fiction now, it’s fucking fiction.

I start wishing I had a pen, some paper. Details of all this will be good. This will make some kind of short story or something.

But then it will sound like one of those things where the narrator, having grown up media-saturated, can’t live through anything without it having echoes of similar experiences in television, movies, books, blah blah.

“Screw it, I’m not going to be a fucking anecdote in your stupid book.”

“Listen, John—” “Who’s John?” “You’re John.” “I’m John?” “Yeah. I changed your name.” “Oh. Right. Now, why John again?”

gravamen

there is no logic to San Francisco generally, a city built with putty and pipe cleaners, rubber cement and colored construction paper.

“You’re breaking out of character again.”

I am misshapen

the emotional equivalent of a drug binge,

lamé,