Eggers: Purpose and Form and Deviations from the Expected Sara Miner College

Dave Eggers utilizes unusual formatting tactics to present his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, including a lengthy introduction and acknowledgements section, inauthentic dialogue, personal commentary, and even an unconventional copyright page. The deviation from expected norms in the memoir genre can be seeded out even through the tone of Eggers-as-narrator. While the book focuses on tragedy, loss, and mourning, it is often funny, uplifting, sarcastic, and disturbingly light. This unexpected turn from what one might assume would be a dark, twisted, depressing piece of literature brings much-needed authenticity to the story, revealing the truth behind oft-fetishized tragedies like orphan-hood. The way in which Eggers constructs his Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is, in fact, genius, and lends itself to the content quite well; unconventional writing forms may be the only proper way to write as intended, that is, authentically, about heartbreakingly tragic events.

Eggers’ book can be divided into two “books,” according to Elise Miller, which consist of “an autobiographical narrative about unbearable suffering, and a book of critical commentary, a psychoanalysis, as it were, of the particular challenges...