(McSweeney's)

$22.00

4. Actually, many of you might want to skip much of the middle, namely pages 239-351, which concern the lives of people in their early twenties, and whose lives are very difficult to make interesting, even when they seem interesting to those living them at the time.--Dave Eggers

Chances are you are one of the many who inhaled Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius upon its release two years ago, which means the above quote--taken from the first page, under the header "RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ENJOYMENT OF THIS BOOK"--is undoubtedly very familiar to you. It is a funny line, of course--a rather massive wink by the author--not only because it's a clever stroke of literary subversion (after all, what other authors can you name who would dare to advise readers to skip portions of their books? Rick Moody? David Foster Wallace?), but also because it's so painfully true. People in their 20s, especially people in their early 20s, do, indeed, lead ridiculously uninteresting lives, even in most fiction, which may go a long way in explaining why worthwhile books about people post-teens (but under 30) are anomalies rather than common.

A secret agent around the age of 25, recruited by the CIA and stashed undercover in some hostile territory? Sure, he/she may tackle an interesting problem or two worthy of 300-plus pages. But the average chump--college educated, or avoiding college, or working some mundane job, or considering a career, or already feeling trapped in a mundane career, or having just dumped someone/been dumped by someone--? Nope. Not really that interesting, despite what the character's penner may think.

So why then has Eggers chosen for his second book, his big follow-up to his Pulitzer-nominated memoir, a novel about two men in their 20s? I dunno, and it doesn't really matter, because You Shall Know Our Velocity, at 371 pages, falls into the category of anomaly. Which is to say, it's pretty damn good. As in, Eggers has managed to elude the dreaded sophomore slump--no mean feat, considering this latest opus is sure to be under mucho, mucho scrutiny, both by the likes of me, and those writing for noteworthy book sections. This novel is big news, no matter what Eggers wishes, and as such it is going to be pulled apart and pored over by the snooty media blitzkrieg. Thankfully, Eggers has been up to the task.

The plot of You Shall Know Our Velocity: Two lifelong friends, one named Will (who is our narrator), the other named Hand (which is a nickname), attempt to circle the globe via airlines in the span of a week, giving away some $38,000 in the process. The money is Will's, having had it fall into his hands thanks to an absurd windfall involving his own silhouette and a light bulb manufacturer. But Will doesn't want it. The weight of the money--a weight mostly made of guilt--is too heavy for him, so he decides to squander it in the most noble of fashions. Hence the journey, during which Will and Hand, or so the plan goes, will give away the sum to strangers they encounter.

Unfortunately, this is not as easy as one would expect. The journey itself, beginning in Chicago and hopefully ending in Cairo, has the air of a lark, a youthful blunder, but there is an underlying meaning of healing tucked inside. Will and Hand's dear friend, Jack, has recently died--run over gruesomely by a semi--and Will himself has, as the book opens, even more recently been serviced a savage beating thanks to one of Hand's irrational exploits. So as the two embark on the trip, thrown together with more whimsy than strategy, they are both searching and escaping--Will more so than Hand.

His face still bruised and scabbing from his beating, Will is raging sensitivity to Hand's hyper-intelligent jester, and they are an absurd duo to be trekking around the world together. Both equally engaging and annoying, Eggers' heroes have a close but tenuous relationship, and it is this relationship that gives You Shall Know Our Velocity the majority of its girth. They are like so many friends we all have--at one moment pure joy to be around, at another close to a throttling from your very hands--and because of this, the book's intricacies of plot may ring truer than they should. Which is what fiction should do--dazzle with a yarn that you can identify with on some level. Otherwise, it's just a cold tale. And even though plotting is obviously not entirely within Eggers' comfort level, You Shall Know Our Velocity's story line is ultimately worth the page count.

At this point in his (still young) career, it is very easy for relentlessly snide scribblers--reviewers, columnists, etc.--to turn on Eggers. He is, after all, the thing of the moment. And Eggers himself has done little in an attempt to thwart incoming attacks. Copies of You Shall Know Our Velocity were not made available before he started his latest tour--indeed, not even before the book was released--and Eggers himself has voiced his disdain for reviewers and the whole business of literary journalism a number of times. He is a rather prickly fellow, it seems, but there's no denying that he is a fairly mammoth talent.

A talent who goes beyond his obvious cleverness into outright author, which means years from now we are sure to still be reading his books. Fiction is always harder to do well than reporting (or writing a memoir), and You Shall Know Our Velocity proves that Eggers can tackle both.