Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

¶ … Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. Specifically it will discuss the "front matter" in the book. This book is clearly different, and that is one reason the front matter is so unconventional. The author is unconventional, and so it fits his writing style and his purpose in telling his story perfectly. In addition, the front matter, including the outrageous copyright page, gives the reader a good idea of what to expect inside the pages of the book. This is an irreverent book by an irreverent author, and by reading the front matter the reader knows that. They can choose to turn the pages or put the book down right then.

There are many reasons the publisher might have allowed Eggers to take this very unconventional route with his front matter. Today, memoirs, especially of younger people, are not often the biggest sellers in the book world. By creating a unique and different book, complete with very different front matter, they may have hoped to reach a wider audience for their book - a younger audience that was looking for something unusual and distinctive.

The front matter is also quite funny, which is another lead-in to the book itself. Clearly, the author does not take his life too seriously, even thought many of the events have been very serious, and so, he creates engaging front matter that draws the reader in. He is not normal, his memoir is not normal, his front matter is not either, and the reader knows this from the very first page. The publisher probably allowed this distinctive author to have his own way with the front matter because they thought it would help sell the book. If not, they never would have allowed it.

Eggers works so extensively at disrupting the formality of publication and his status as an author because that is his personality. He is not your conventional memoir writer. First, he is only 29, and that is young to be writing a memoir. Second, he is a parent at a time when he is still really a child, and he recognizes that. He does not take himself or his life too seriously, and he certainly does not take the formal business routine of the publishing houses seriously. The reader gets the idea that Eggers would have been just as happy if his memoir never got published, and that he was extremely happy to find a house that would let him do it his own way. There are not many houses that would have allowed him to write this on the copyright page. "Published in the United States by Simon & Schuster, a division of a larger and more powerful company called Viacom Inc., which is wealthier and more populous than eighteen of the fifty states of America, all of Central America, and all of the former Soviet Republics combined and tripled" (Eggers). All of this adds up to a very different author, and a very different book. Eggers does want the formality of publishing, he marches to the beat of his own drum, and wants a publisher that does, too, or at least will help keep the beat.