A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Dave Eggers
- First Published: 2000
- Type of Work: Memoirs
- Time of Work: 1991-1997
- Setting: Lake Forest, Illinois; San Francisco; and Berkeley
- Principal Characters: Dave Eggers, Beth Eggers, Bill Eggers, Toph Eggers
- Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Twentieth century, California, Brothers, Cancer, Death or dying, Publishing or publishers, San Francisco, Mass media, Orphans or orphanages, 1990’s, Illinois
- Locales: San Francisco, CA, Berkeley, CA, Lake Forest, IL
Dave Eggers is viewed by many media critics as one of the stars in the Generation X literary world. A magazine editor with imagination and courage, he founded Might magazine and, after its failure, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Through his editing he had achieved a certain intellectual status, as well as notoriety, in American culture before his thirtieth birthday.
His memoir, however, is not simply an account of the struggles of a young writer and magazine editor trying to find his niche in the Bay Area, although it includes such an account (in what is the...
[The entire page is 1808 words long]
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