A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, with its self-proclaiming title, doesn't disappoint. A heady mixture of metafictional humour, tragedy and zeitgeist-capturing makes this book one of the most impressive debuts written in the last decade.

The first thirty pages are hard, really heart-wrenching descriptions of Eggers' mother's final breaths and Eggers' attempts to protect his younger brother from her demise. It's painful honest stuff and death almost comes as a relief. By the time he's living in San Francisco, being parent brother and fun-maker for Toph, his younger brother, the book becomes something else entirely. Still tinged with grief, who follows is a hilarious snapshot of San Francisco at a certain time, when it was creatively booming and when literature and comedy were making waves in new ways. Eggers' descriptions of the games he and his brother played, how they lived in a part frat-house/part funhouse are endearing and funny, his work on the magazine Might shows a canny tastemaking ability that would eventually come to the fore on McSweeneys.

Balancing both anger and humour, this is a brilliant book, sparkling with a lightness of touch and full of warmth.