It took me longer than normal to get through this book, which I consider both a gift and an emotional roller coaster. This is my second time through this book, a year or so older than the first time, and I don’t know if it’s just a part of me but I think I loved this book even more than the first time.
I’m a rather large sucker for the f-ed up person memoirs. In the grand scheme of things I love hearing how people dealt with the stuff that came up in their lives while still managing to remain remarkably sane. Dave Eggers is a master storyteller and an expert in the art of stream of consciousness writing. Even with all his faults you forgive him. How could you not? I don’t know how I could possibly manage to raise my little brother or sister (if they existed that is) when I was barely an adult myself.
Eggers, who founded McSweeney’s, is the literary equivalent of a nervous breakdown in this book. It’s emotional, raw, powerful, and both profoundly sad and funny at the same time. His trip from semi-adult/parent/brother to adult/parent/brother/friend is an astonishing testament of how love can manage to fill the void when the world comes crashing, with speed and vigor, around your ears.
For some people, I could see how this book could drive you insane. It’s chronological, in a sense at least, but it sways back and forth between the present and the past and has no straight narrative style throughout. It’s a story in pieces and parts, written by someone with an urge to both lay their soul bare and conceal it from the outside world.
Fall into this book. It’s really all you can do. Like the scenes on beaches that are interspersed in the book, it will wash over you and make you whole. It will make you think. It will make you love.
