Chances are, you’ve never heard of Dave Eggers. But chances are you’ve heard of his work. He co-wrote the screenplay to Where the Wild Things Are and the full-length narrative companion piece The Wild Things, he is the founder of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (seriously, check this one out if you’re not familiar), and his novels like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and You Shall Know Our Velocity! are some of the best pieces of modern fiction put out in the last twenty years.
And his collection of short stories How We Are Hungry has become one of my favorites of ALL-TIME. Why, you ask? Oh, let me count the ways. First of all, he breaks all molds for short storytelling. His shortest piece in this collection is roughly 500 words, his longest is around fifty pages. The frames of the stories are technically astounding, his ideas are fresh and new, his characters are simple yet complex in their thoughts. He even writes a short story about writing a short story (“Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone”), yet you become so lost in it, you forget that it’s supposed to be about writing a short story and not the story itself, which sounds confusing, but to a writer is so inspiring.
He disburses the stories like anecdotes of strange and amazing lives, told without apology and sometimes reason. He wears many, many masks, like the man who cannot forget an image he’s seen in a newspaper (it’s the second story in the collection, with a title that is much too long to print here- I shit you not). It’s nice to know that not everyone has become desensitized to the world that is falling apart around us.
In “She Waits, Seething, Blooming,” he is a mother that seethes with a sick passion for her son to get home so that she revel in his disobedience.
In “Your Mother and I,” he is a father who makes salads with his child years after having saved the world- quite literally.
In “After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned,” he is a dog who loves nothing more than to run, who “see[s] colors like you hear jetplanes.”
In “Quiet,” he is the moon, who tells a guy who’s in love with a one-armed girl that, “I feel time like you dream. Your dreams are jumbled. You can’t remember the order of your dreams, and when you recall them, the memories bend. Faces change. It’s all in puddles and ripples. That’s what time is for me.” (Excuse me while I SWOON)
I could go on forever about this collection. And if I haven’t told you already (which I have), short stories are great because you can read them in one sitting. Open the book to the table of contents, close your eyes, and point to a title. I guarantee you’ll be riveted, you’ll be moved, and you’ll want to read more.
And just in time for Valentine’s Day: If you read no other story in the book, read “On Wanting to Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home.” It’s less than two pages long. Guys, take my advice: go to a bookstore with your lady, find the book, and in the middle of the store, read it to her; it’s a sure fire way to get some V-Day lovin’. And if you don’t have a lady to read it to, call me up and you can read it to me, I’ll never get tired of it!
Just in Time for Valentine’s Day…
How We Are Hungry- Dave Eggers
Chances are, you’ve never heard of Dave Eggers. But chances are you’ve heard of his work. He co-wrote the screenplay to Where the Wild Things Are and the full-length narrative companion piece The Wild Things, he is the founder of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (seriously, check this one out if you’re not familiar), and his novels like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and You Shall Know Our Velocity! are some of the best pieces of modern fiction put out in the last twenty years.
And his collection of short stories How We Are Hungry has become one of my favorites of ALL-TIME. Why, you ask? Oh, let me count the ways. First of all, he breaks all molds for short storytelling. His shortest piece in this collection is roughly 500 words, his longest is around fifty pages. The frames of the stories are technically astounding, his ideas are fresh and new, his characters are simple yet complex in their thoughts. He even writes a short story about writing a short story (“Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone”), yet you become so lost in it, you forget that it’s supposed to be about writing a short story and not the story itself, which sounds confusing, but to a writer is so inspiring.
He disburses the stories like anecdotes of strange and amazing lives, told without apology and sometimes reason. He wears many, many masks, like the man who cannot forget an image he’s seen in a newspaper (it’s the second story in the collection, with a title that is much too long to print here- I shit you not). It’s nice to know that not everyone has become desensitized to the world that is falling apart around us.
In “She Waits, Seething, Blooming,” he is a mother that seethes with a sick passion for her son to get home so that she revel in his disobedience.
In “Your Mother and I,” he is a father who makes salads with his child years after having saved the world- quite literally.
In “After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned,” he is a dog who loves nothing more than to run, who “see[s] colors like you hear jetplanes.”
In “Quiet,” he is the moon, who tells a guy who’s in love with a one-armed girl that, “I feel time like you dream. Your dreams are jumbled. You can’t remember the order of your dreams, and when you recall them, the memories bend. Faces change. It’s all in puddles and ripples. That’s what time is for me.” (Excuse me while I SWOON)
I could go on forever about this collection. And if I haven’t told you already (which I have), short stories are great because you can read them in one sitting. Open the book to the table of contents, close your eyes, and point to a title. I guarantee you’ll be riveted, you’ll be moved, and you’ll want to read more.
And just in time for Valentine’s Day: If you read no other story in the book, read “On Wanting to Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home.” It’s less than two pages long. Guys, take my advice: go to a bookstore with your lady, find the book, and in the middle of the store, read it to her; it’s a sure fire way to get some V-Day lovin’. And if you don’t have a lady to read it to, call me up and you can read it to me, I’ll never get tired of it!