by Dave Eggers, 2000, 2001 (First Vintage Books Edition: February 2001)
I got this book from the Little Free Library in front of Poppy’s house on Locust Street. It was mostly laugh out loud funny and I adored it until the end. It’s a memoir. Dave’s father and mother died within 5 weeks of each other, both of cancer. His mother was expected, taking her slowly. His dad went first though, and none of them expected that. He was a smoker, an alcoholic, sometimes mean and scary. Dave and his sister Beth (but mostly Dave) end up raising their little brother, Tofe, whom they love so much. They move to California – first Berkeley, then San Francisco. The book is full of Dave’s angst and worry about Tofe and everything that goes with raising a child, and it’s hilarious. Tofe seems to be an incredibly healthy, fun, happy, beautiful child. And Dave can write! The words just flow perfectly onto the page from his mind, it seems.
In the “Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book:”
“1. There is no overwhelming need to read the preface. Really. It exists mostly for the author, and those who, after finishing the rest of the book, have for some reason found themselves stuck with nothing else to read…”
#2 and #3 say no need to read the acknowledgements section or the table of contents.
“4. Actually, many of you might want to skip much of the middle, namely pages 239-351, which concern the lives of people in their early twenties, and those lives are very difficult to make interesting, even when they seemed interesting to those living them at the time.”
“5. Matter of fact, the first three or four chapters are all some of you might want to bother with. That gets you to page 123 or so, which is a nice length, a nice novella sort of length….”
“6. The book thereafter is kind of uneven.”
That is really good advice, actually, but I read every word.
There are so many funny parts! My favorites are when he’s describing driving alongside the California coast with Tofe and worrying about driving off the cliff. But he’s certain that he and Tofe would survive. They’d look at each other and both open their doors and do perfect simultaneous dives into the ocean.
One part that was funny but difficult was when he left Tofe with a male babysitter to go into San Francisco for a night on the town. The things he worried about constantly were horrible, and he didn’t have a good time. The evening ended with him going to the beach with a girlfriend and they were surrounded by many Hispanic youths and he is convinced they stole his wallet. They keep insisting they didn’t, but he makes them walk with him from the beach to the parking lot – it’s amazing they didn’t thump him good, and they eventually escape in their car. He calls the police to catch them. The police pull over a car that’s the wrong color and the wrong race of people. When he finally gets home, Tofe has not been molested and dismembered by the babysitter and his wallet is on his dresser.
There is a hilarious part where he is describing being at work and all the sudden his insides feel like they are being scraped out by spoons. He gets Shalini to drive him to the hospital. The whole way he is describing his worries about dying and leaving Tofe, and how good Shalini smells. I had Wayne read this part. He laughed out loud, too. It ends up it was a kidney stone.
Shalini is one of his most favorite people, a young Indian woman, sweet and beautiful. She was at a party with a bunch of people and out on a deck/balcony 4 stories high and it collapsed and she fell on her head. She was in a coma for many months but then gradually came out of it, and she was almost her old self, except she could never remember what happened to her – the accident.
Another HILARIOUS part is when he is describing getting Tofe’s school pictures and it’s Oh NO! Why did you do this? Tofe is so beautiful but has such a sad look on his face that Dave is convinced the social workers are going to come and take him away. He is trying to figure out how they can escape before they get there. ‘We will use disguises. We have capes.’ Just HILARIOUS.
But then, the end. He devolves into a rant full of MF and F words and hatred against people. He has just described he and Tofe and their perfect Frisbee throwing on the beach in California. Here are the last few sentences:
“I am there. I was there. Don’t you know that I am connected to you? Don’t you know that I’m trying to pump blood to you, that this is for you, that I hate you people, so many of you motherfuckers– When you sleep I want you never to wake up, so many of you I want you to just fucking sleep it away because I only want you to run under with me on this sand like Indians, if you’re going to fucking sleep all day fuck you motherfuckers oh when you’re all sleeping so many sleeping I am somewhere on some stupid rickety scaffolding and I’m trying to get your stupid fucking attention I’ve been trying to show you this, just been trying to show you this– What the fuck does it take to show you motherfuckers, what does it fucking take what do you want how much do you want because I am willing and I’ll stand before you and I’ll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait, and I’ve been so old for so long, for you, for you, I want it fast and right through me– Oh do it, do it, you motherfuckers, do it do it you fuckers finally, finally, finally.”
I read the Acknowledgments after I was done, and the section, “C.2) The Knowingness About the Book’s Self-Consciousness Aspect” says “…the gimmickry is simply a device, a defense, to obscure the black, blinding, murderous rage and sorrow at the core of this whole story, which is both too black and blinding to look at–avert…your…eyes!…“
In the Preface, he writes: “A Note About Columbine: This book was written, and the dialogue it recounts was spoken, many years before the horrific events at that school and elsewhere. No levity is being attached to such things, intentionally or not.”
Also in the Acknowledgements, he talks about the title: “The author wishes to acknowledge your problems with the title. He too has reservations. The title you see on the cover was the winner of a round-robin sort of title tourney, held outside Phoenix, Arizona, over a long weekend in December 1998. The other contenders, with reasons for failure: A Heartbreaking Work of Death and Embarrassment (true but unappealing); An Astounding Work of Courage and Strength (Stephen Ambrose would have cause for action); Memories of a Catholic Boyhood (also taken, more or less); and Old and Black in America (risque, some say). We preferred the last one, alluding as it does to both aging and an American sort of otherness, but it was dismissed out of hand by the publisher, leaving us with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. …”
Funny part, page 58, Dave is really worried about Tofe not being able to hit the baseball. He always misses.
“As we hit our street, Spruce, and the ground flattens out, I inquire, as gently as I possibly can, about his hitting, or lack thereof.
“So why do you suck so much at hitting?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you need a lighter bat.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, maybe we’ll get a new bat.”
“Can we?”
“Yeah, we’ll look for a new bat or something.”
‘Then I push him into a bush.”