This was the second time I read this book.... because I forgot I read it a first time. It wasn't until I read "The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water" that I realized that there were only a couple of these shorts that actually resonated; the rest were white noise. I have read nearly all of Eggars' words, and I love them, with all of their quirky self-awareness and expirementation (and yes, even sometimes pretention). I think Eggars has a way with words that I have only seen in a select few other writers, so even if some specific stories are misses for me, the collection will always be a hit. I will gladly forget all of the other stories all over again if it brings me to re-read my favorites.

The fact that Dave Eggers is a celebrated literary figure and writer is no secret but reading his work, especially How We Are Hungry, always feels like a very private act.

The sparse, punchy prose drive to the heart of what people hunger for: love, acceptance, companionship, approval, that thing they feel will fill that growing hole in the soul. I’m not normally a massive fan of short story collections as I am often left feeling unfulfilled; if the idea and the story is good enough, I (selfishly) want the character’s lives to continue and so I frequently end up feeling short-changed. Here, however, not a single world is wasted in creating small worlds of flawed, fascinating and wholly relatable characters, that feel complete and end where and when they are supposed to. I hope this is not too laboured a metaphor but it often feels like the stories are skeletons for an array of different animals, to which you add your own flesh and colours as you read, creating a personal and intimately reflective zoo.

As with much of his other work, Eggers tries to push the art of story-telling a little further. Notes For A Story Of A Man Who Will Not Die Alone, is, as the title says, made up of simple, sketched notes. ‘Simple’ however does not do the passage justice as it contains as much thought and nuance as the much, and rightly, celebrated Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly, which at 60 pages takes up a quarter of the book.

The apotheosis of Egger’s economy with words is There Are Some Things He Should Keep To Himself, which is the very bare bones of one the skeletons I referred to earlier. For some, I can see that this ‘story’ might be a step too far, and a step into the land of literary pretension. For my money, Eggars stays on the right side of the line by virtue of the quality, beauty and sheer elegance of his writing, and just as often, the elegance of what he didn’t write.

A hit or miss collection of short stories. Most stories felt like pure nonsense, relying on gimmicky formats and contrived situations in lieu of having any actual content, almost like an Internet meme masquerading as something real. Still, there were a few stories that were quite fun (e.g., the "After I Was Thrown in the River..." story from the point of view of a dog, complete with ideas about the afterlife). And, there were a couple of stories (including "Climbing to the Window..." and "She Waits...") that felt like they captured something approaching truth or something real about the human experience. Dave Eggers is talented, but he's at his best when he's not enamored with exploring the limits of how talented he might be.

2 1/2 stars.

I'm sorry, Dave Eggers. I am so, so sorry, because I love you (yes, personally), I love AHWOSG, I love You Shall Know Our Velocity, and I love What is the What. But I did not love this book.

At first I just thought I didn't like the shift from novel to short story, but I can handle it from Wallace, Alexie, and Fitzgerald, so that can't be it. These are just not very well done. To be honest, I felt like Eggers was coasting on his success here. Once you've published something like AHWOSG, everyone will pretty much buy anything you write, and find excuses to like it. Which is what I did, for a while... but the truth remains: I read this book once, put it down, and never picked it up again, not even to look at the pretty cover.

And I know I sound ridiculous, but the threesome-with-a-one-armed-woman story just bothered the shit out of me on so many levels.

Read this in Chicago and LA. Some great stories; painfully human.

Yeah, this wasn't very good. I like Eggers' other stuff, and I love me some McSweeney's, but this - not so much. They seemed like rough drafts. There's even one (Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone) that has a great premise, but he doesn't actually write the story, he brainstorms how he would write the story. I know, I know, he's being very purposeful about all of this, I'm sure, but I don't think it makes for a very enjoyable reading experience. I wasn't interested in any of the characters, except (for some reason) Grant from Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly. That is actually a pretty solid story, but I'm not recommending the rest. I do really respect and appreciate Eggers' aching sincerity, and I think that's worked well for him in his other work. Sorry Dave! I promise to keep reading your stuff!

"After I Fell into the River" is an great story, I like to hear stories from the POV of other beings than humans. And the afterlife part adds a bonus.
"Your Mother and I" is a suburban, if-democrats-weren't-actually-less-stupid-republicans, ecotopia-vision told in dialogue and while making nachos, the nachos part is a little too cutesy but the ideas to change society are well done.
The very short stories in this collection all aren't that special.
Some of the stories in this collection I was bored with, especially the return of "Hand" from YSKOV!
"Another" was an enjoyable story that showcased travel, Eggers must be traveling a lot or wishing he was.

Decent, but not amazing. This collection made me long for Davy Rothbart to release a new collection...I just don't think I'll ever enjoy short stories like I enjoyed Lone Surfer.


Some highlights:
-Another
-Your Mother And I
-Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone
-After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned

Of those, Your Mother And I & After I was Thrown were probably my two favorites. Your Mother and I just cracked me up the entire time- it was so endearing, so personable...so...good. After I Was Thrown In A River... the beginning made it impossible for me to read without having a giant smile on my face, especially because it made me think of my own dog. The middle of the story kind of lost my interest, but overall it was good.


Out of the 14 stories there really weren't any total clunkers, but very few really reached out and grabbed me. Decent read, worth the time- but overall, it just wasn't as interesting as I was hoping it would be.

I love Dave Eggers, but this book had me torn. If you take this book as a collection of stories, there are some parts that really really shine. As a whole though, the collection is really not that memorable. Some of the stories are really poorly thought out, almost sophomoric. The stories that I did like in here I really enjoyed like 'Quiet' , 'Up the Mountain Climbing Down Slowly' and 'After I was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned) which were absolutely amazing. I can see the latter of these not leaving me for some time.

There are some stories ('Your Mother and I') which are super pretentious, which takes away from how beautifully Eggers writes. Maybe that's why his books like What is the What, AHBWOSG, and Zeitoun shine: the non-fiction element makes it impossible for him to have massive amounts of pretension that lay on just the writing. I'd say save yourself some time by just reading the good stories, but I think it's something that you can skip.

Fiction Deflation.
I wonder if I just don't get Dave Eggers. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is pretty much what the title suggests. One of the most unbelievable memoirs I've ever read. McSweeney's consistently puts out the most cutting edge mags and anthologies. They have the freshest ideas, synthesize combinations of avante-garde, interstitial, genre and academia. But then Eggers writes fiction and I feel like I'm missing something. It reads at a very surface level. To me it reads like overly simplified Hemmingway. Nothing but facts. Right to the point. There is a suggestion of overarching metaphor, but it's just a suggestion.
I read for metaphor. I am looking for spiritual, philosophical application in my life. Art peels masks. Takes the illusions in reality away by creating an obvious illusion. So when Eggers carts me through foreign lands, is he telling me I need to watch more CNN? Do I need to read the news more? I understand his books get nominated for plenty of awards and I'm a whore for that sort of thing, but I just don't get him. Velocity and Hologram were similar. Fact chasing around the world.
He is a weird hero of mine. More for his philanthropic work and movement of modern literature, so why am I always at odds with his fiction? Does anyone else feel this way? It is inaccessible and surface level. The characters are only vaguely recognizable and because I love Eggers I blame myself. Perhaps I am not worldly enough to enter his characters and truly understand them?

My favourite three stories were

The one written from the perspective of a dog, he talks about hanging out in the woods with his dog friends and running and is just real stoked on life. Then when he is running in the woods one day, he falls down and dies but he is still conscious inside of his dead body and then he goes to doggy heaven.

The one about the guy who did not want to die alone so he arranged this event in a stadium where people could be with him when he died. The only page of the book that I ear-marked had a quote on it saying "There has not been a beautiful death in the history of mankind". Felt like crying towards the end of the book, I was sitting in the sun on the front steps at my granddad's house. It made me feel nice.

The other one was about a woman climbing some big ass mountain, can't remember which one. I really enjoyed the narrative, it seemed like the longest story in the book. Ye. Idk.

I read Dave Eggers short story collection How We Are Hungry and mostly enjoyed it. I felt that the longer stories were the most interesting and well written. Some of the shorter pieces came off as preciously whimsical or smugly knowing-the literary equivalent of a Wes Anderson film. However, the stories “The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water” and “Up The Mountain Coming Down Slowly” demonstrate Eggers’ excellent ear for dialogue, effective characterizations, and inventive descriptions. He does an excellent job of bringing the character’s personalities and emotional states accurately to life. In the former story, we have a woman visiting a male friend in Nicaragua, and the complex emotions between the two are laid bare. And the later is a realistic rendering of a mountain climbing adventure full of the self-revelations that would most likely occur during such a challenging and arduous endeavor. Again beautifully rendered. It makes me wonder if Eggers has been doing a lot of traveling since his breakthrough success with A Staggering Work Of Heartbreaking Genius given the locations of these stories and the world traveling antics of his characters Will and Hand in his previous novel You Shall Know Our Velocity.