"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers -- Veto #2

Send us Fan MailSo what happened was this . . . At the end of the episode on “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo, the random number generator gave us #355. The book corresponding to this number was “Emma” by Jane Austen. Rebecca ixnayed that itshay quicker than quick, but she then had to use the random number generator to pick a tome from her veto list. The redraw gave us A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers’ powerful 2000 memoir about caring for his younger brother after the death of his parents.This book is hard to categorize. The Pulitzer Prize committee felt it was, in fact, a memoir when they shortlisted it for the prize. The author himself acknowledges throughout the book that some of it is fictionalized and not at all depicted the way that events actually happened. Aren’t memoirs by their very nature technically post-modern works?Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it totally fabricated? Regardless of which genre you choose, however, it cannot be denied that the book is aptly named.