I soon learned that Eggers had a book coming out about his real-life story -- a long and motley tale of his parents' deaths within five weeks of each other when he was 21, and how he had to assume care of his eight-year-old brother, Toph. A book whose contents equal the claim of its title: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
After their parents' deaths from unrelated cancers, Dave moved Toph to Berkeley, California, where they found themselves playing out a sort of satirical routine of father and son. Dave joined up with some friends to start a magazine called Might, a sort of smart-assed experiment in cultural commentary and prankish behavior. The magazine was best known for its issue dedicated to the death of Eight Is Enough child star Adam Rich, who was not really dead. The concept of celebrity has always been close to Eggers' funny bone (Mr. T lived near his parents in Illinois). But now the joke is on him. Dave Eggers is set to become the hottest young celebrity/oddity of the year 2000. Like Crispin Glover, but not really.
Dave and I recently sat down together (simultaneously at our computers) and gave birth to "An interview with Dave Eggers." Go.
Mr. Eggers, your book begins with a page simply stating: "This was uncalled for." And throughout the book, you seem to waver back and forth between feeling foolish and feeling you have something significant to say. Now that the book is out, how do you feel about it?
You know, that's an interesting question. One that reminds me of something that I've wanted to address for a very long time. Why is it that, on page 152 of The Handbook for the Sanitary Troops (William Wood and Company, 1917), they say about standard U.S. Army beds: "The regulation hospital bed is of white enameled iron with wire springs, and is excellent in every way. The mattress is of hair in three sections fastened together by straps, so that the soiling or destruction of one section does not necessitate the loss of the entire mattress; further to protect the mattress each is supplied with a movable cover which should always be used"? This seems blatantly contradictory to everything we have come to know and trust about God and His hand in issues of trust and compassion. I blink before photographs are taken. The son of Marcus Aurelius was a bastard.
Describe an average day in the life of "Dave."
I thank you for that question.
You seem to be very angry at the end of the book. When you started doing McSweeney's, did you lighten up, or are you still pissed?
I'm glad you asked that. See, when most people dream, they incorporate the buildings and settings they know from their past and their everyday lives. For example, if their dream necessitates a plantation, the Southern plantation will be, as often as not, actually their childhood backyard, though always one's dream-brain will inform one's dream-watching self that the backyard, while of course looking like the childhood backyard, is indeed a Southern plantation. And the dream-watching brain, being a hopelessly gullible being, will buy it all, and keep watching.
I'm sure people are going to ask you this when you go on the book tour, but, are you still caring for your young brother, or did he finally run away?
I did, sadly, have to give him away a few years ago. I had already had him for six years, you see, and I was needing some new wheels. So I traded him in and got a decent price on a '92 Accord with red pleather interior. That car is amazing. Haven't had to service it once.
Did that experience ruin your anticipation for children of your own?
No. It postponed my desire to start over with new young baby-people, but did not ruin it. Remember that I took on Toph when he was eight, thus I have yet to experience full parenthood for the zero-to-eight age-ranged-person. So, my plan at this point is to somehow make or find a baby of the near-or-at-zero category, rear him until he is eight, then abandon him -- no need to repeat what you've already done -- having thus completed the cycle, albeit with two different young people.
Is McSweeney's going to start publishing books by some of its regulars? Like maybe one by Lucy Thomas?
Yes. There will be one in April, then a few in the summer. Information will appear on the website when it's more concrete. We will also start reissuing mid-century Icelandic anthropological monographs, and are working on a "Best of," compiling highlights of the medical manuals of the U.S. Army, 1914-1946.
We are very serious about this.
Ever talk to Adam Rich these days? You know, that whole prank seems a bit similar to the real-life death of Dana Plato. And, oh yeah, did you ever meet Mr. T?
I thank you for that question.
Can we dish a little? What writers would you never publish in McSweeney's? And don't you just hate Douglas Coupland?
Hatred of writers: odd concept. Why hate a writer, or his or her work? (Asking not just the interviewer, but -- squinting to see those in the back rows -- all those seated): What makes us so angry toward these people? Completing a book is so arduous and bewildering and near-impossible that I have to say that when you complete a book yourself, your respect for anyone who has also reached the end of that mine-riddled trek increases exponentially.
Much in the way that having a baby changes one's perspective on life, work, professional sports, etc., working on and ideally finishing... a book, or play, or album, or whatever, immediately shoves you into a place where you stand in reverence to all who finish things, who bring to fruition something they've imagined. Thinking you could probably do something as well as someone else is worlds apart from actually trying to do it. Then, actually completing that project is worlds apart from simply trying it.
So. I can't say that I thought Mr. Coupland's last book was a work of tremendous brilliance -- it sorely needed an editor (of which there are, in book publishing, perhaps six or seven who actually feel compelled, and have the time to edit), and the book was, overall, not reflective of thorough revising and rigorous sentence-improving -- but I do guarantee that anyone who has themselves undertaken a novel will, as they are writing and are stuck on page 241 without a rudder or third act, suddenly think [that] Coupland, with four or five books of different structure and stripe to his name, is a genius and a saint.
There was a time, at Might, when we hated a lot of people, and scorned this writer and that actor and those bands because the product of their labors didn't appeal to us. But the problem wasn't so much that these people were incredible frauds, or evil-born, or deserved to be run out of their chosen media, but that we, the critics, were bitter. We wanted to be given the chance they had been given, and we felt like their presence in the world of people-being-aware-of-you left less room for us -- for the awareness of us and our own endeavor, Might. [This resulted in] the sniping, the critical flayings we and others would do, ostensibly for the good of the Republic and the lively debate within. But really, in the end, anger toward any creator or product of creativity says a good deal more about the angry person than it does about the creator of the work, or the work itself.
The only exception to this is when something is truly, indefensibly fraudulent, and made without heart. But that brand of art is hard to find. It really is.
In terms of McSweeney's, there is absolutely no writer alive or dead we wouldn't publish, if what they submitted to us made us happy in some way and fit into a given issue's feel and structure. Ethan Hawke, John Grisham, William Weld, Dean R. Koontz, Joan Collins, Newt Gingrich -- all have written books and all are capable, one guesses, of doing worthwhile work, as is everyone, regardless of their background or what information or attitudes we bring to the reading of their work. Did Ethan Hawke, for example, write a good book when he wrote The Hottest State? He did. First of all, he did write it, and he did complete it, and it makes sense, and has a beginning and a middle and an end. All impressive feats. And it was his first book. Surely we have the right to not like the book, but only the dark-hearted or confused will dismiss it out of hand, or hate it, or resent him for doing it.
Of course, I don't mean to imply that you, Kevin my friend/interviewer-man, meant anything so awful about Mr. Coupland, or anyone at all. I realize the word "hate," when you used it, was used loosely and without (much) malice, and I apologize for making it a springboard for my tract. Hi.
I must comment on the cover art: a grandiose image of a fringed scarlet curtain unveiling a fantastic sunset. Any ideas for the paperback's artwork when it comes out?
The cover art will stay the same, unless something horrible happens. Komar and Melamid did an original painting for the hardcover, which I hope will not be replaced when it's time for the paperback.
Dave Eggers reads from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius on Monday, February 28, 7:30 pm at Elliott Bay Books, 101 S Main St, 624-6600, free (advance tickets recommended).
