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At 21, Dave Eggers lost both his mother and father to unrelated cancers, only about 30 days apart. He then left Chicago and moved to Berkeley (and ... (show more)
At 21, Dave Eggers lost both his mother and father to unrelated cancers, only about 30 days apart. He then left Chicago and moved to Berkeley (and later San Francisco) to raise his 8 year old brother, Toph. AHWoSG is a memoir, detailing that part of his life.
The story could easily be translated into a bestselling tearjerker. Start with Dave's childhood, recall tender moments with his parents. Cue in the sickness, escalating till finally the parents die; Dave goes through a dark period, railing against God; Dave accepts his predicament, raises his brother like a son, and all is well with the world.
Fortunately, the book is much more creative. Rather than dwelling on the (true) plot, the book turns itself inward on Eggers himself; his stream-of-consciousness style is constantly at war with itself, unfolding the intricacies of a tragedy in a way a plot-driven novel never could. At one moment he may have nothing but love for his parents, romanticizing their death. The next he is angry and cynical, portraying them in a disgusting light. He is angry with himself, questioning his motives; is he taking advantage of tragedy? His characters often break free from their true dialog, to criticizing his portrayal of them within the story, his condensing of their lives into convenient plot elements, his portrayal of himself as a hero. Real situations wander off into fantasies; past, present, future, and fiction are weaved together. In the end, it focuses more on the shortcomings of writing and exhibitionism, than on the story which drives it.
Sometimes it's a light and joyful read, describing his daily life experiences in descriptive and almost eerily familiar detail. Other times it spirals chaotically into his own psyche, panicked and furious at the contradiction of taking a beautiful act and, by being intentionally beautiful, perverting it. Still others it is deeply saddening, as he steps back from his inner-conflict to give true insight into the nature of loss.
I didn't always want to pick this book up: the first and last third of the book were each read in one sitting; the middle in about 15. But life also tends to drag on, and this book, more than any other I can recall reading, is an extremely accurate portrayal of that life. Contradictions abound, and questions are left unanswered.
As he throws his mother's ashes into Lake Michigan:
"How lame this is, how small, terrible. Or maybe it is beautiful. I can't decide if what I am doing is beautiful and noble and right, or small and disgusting. I want to be doing something beautiful, but am afraid that this is too small, too small, that this gesture, this end is too small
...
I know what I am doing now, that I am doing something both beautiful but gruesome because I am destroying its beauty by knowing that it might be beautiful, know that if I know I am doing something beautiful, that it's no longer beautiful. I fear that even if it is beautiful in the abstract, that my doing it knowing that it's beautiful and worse, knowing that I will very soon be documenting it, that in my pocket is a tape recorder brought for just that purpose -- that all this makes this act of potential beauty somehow gruesome. I am a monster. She would do this without the thinking, without the thinking about thinking -- (show less)
