What is this? What is this? What is this! This isn't a Mormon book. It's not even close to being a Mormon book. What does Parkin think he's doing reviewing a book by a functional agnostic that contains only two passing and completely dismissive mentions of Mormons, that doesn't deal with Mormon history or cosmology or even social habits? And the language in that book! And the casual, meaningless sex! This is not a book that good Mormons should be reading, and it certainly isn't one we should be discussing.

I beg to differ. This is a book that has a great deal to show Mormons about a great many things. It is a good and worthwhile book. I believe it is virtuous and lovely (as well as sometimes bewildered and arrogant and ugly), and I choose to give it a good report and praise, because at its heart this book is as honest and effective an attempt to understand pain and loss and the question of "why me?" as any work I have ever read.

In the interest of journalistic integrity let me tell you up front what this review will contain so you can skip over the uninteresting parts (of course I think the whole thing is interesting, but that's to be expected). If you think the whole thing is uninteresting, then I wish you the best in whatever you do instead of reading this because in the end, this life is a time to find joy and there just isn't enough time left over to spend reading things we don't find value or interest in.

This review is broken down as follows:

1. What this review is about.
2. What this book is.
3. What this book isn't.
4. Why this book should matter very, very much to Mormons.
5. Why I think you should buy and read (or not buy and read) this book.
6. Some random parting comments.

Any further commentary at this point would only be stalling while I try to figure out what to say in these sections and wonder whether I should include subsections but I think I'll skip that because the section titles do provide adequate cues to what's contained within them and I can't figure out how to stall any longer without actually stepping away from the keyboard and rummaging through the fridge or playing games with my kids or something that seems good and useful but that won't actually get this review written so I guess I should stop stalling and just move on.

On, then.

What this review is about

In recent months I have written a number of pseudo-manifestos, calls to the Mormon literary community to take some chances and try some new things and rethink the increasingly stagnant vision that currently informs Mormon lit. This review is another such manifesto, using _A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius_ (AHWOSG) as an exemplary text.

Obviously I think the book was quite good and worth talking about. The rest of this review will do some of that talking.

What this book is

The short version:

AHWOSG is a poignant, funny, difficult, self-effacing, insightful, penetrating, often angry, honest, expansive, self-aware memoir that looks deeply into the author's world and worldview and that revolves around his efforts to understand life and death in general, and his parents' deaths in particular.

In other words, it really is a heartbreaking work of considerable (perhaps even staggering) genius. It is also worth getting and reading, in my opinion.

The long version:

AHWOSG is a memoir of the author's own experiences dealing with the cancer deaths of both of his parents within the space of five weeks, one death expected and the other not. It shows how he deals with the situation in his own life and how he (at twenty-two years old) comes to function as guardian for his younger brother (Toph, aged seven as the book begins). It covers moves from Lake Forest (a far north suburb of Chicago) to the San Francisco area, Eggers' work to start a twentysomething magazine of social commentary (Might Magazine), some of the trials he experiences with his friends, and his own attempt to go back to Lake Forest and find some kind of answers and/or closure for his own pain related to his parents' death .

In other words it's an extended personal essay -- the form of choice for many Mormons.

Of course it is a "fictionalized" essay, with some names and places and events altered to protect the guilty. It's a told story that necessarily compresses and combines, that captures the essence of verity while still providing narrative flow and interest. The author describes the level of fictionalization on the book's copyright page:

This is a work of fiction, only in that in many cases, the author could not remember the exact words said by certain people, and exact descriptions of certain things, so had to fill in the gaps as best he could. Otherwise, all characters and incidents and dialogue are real, are not the products of the author's imagination, because at the time of this writing the author had no imagination whatsoever for those sorts of things, and could not conceive of *making up* a story or characters -- it felt like driving a car in a clown suit -- especially when there was so much to say about his own, true, sorry and inspirational story, the actual people that he has known, and of course the many twists and turns of his own thrilling and complex mind. Any resemblance to persons living or dead should be plainly apparent to them and those who know them, especially if the author has been kind enough to have provided their real names and, in some cases, their phone numbers. All events described herein actually happened, though on occasion the author has taken certain, very small liberties with chronology, because that is his right as an American.

Of course there are a few obviously fictional passages, or at least only internally realized ones. But those passages are quite obvious and lead to some of the most revealing and true parts of the book, usually in the form of self criticism and inline interpretation of surrounding events.

The sense of humor evident above pervades the book. The author is very, very aware of both himself as storyteller of his own life, and as participant in that life. He uses humor throughout to excellent effect in both heightening and diminishing tension in different scenes in what could very easily have become a maudlin, completely self-absorbed tale if handled with less recognition and skill.

But the sense of humor is only a very small part of this book, one of many tools Eggers uses to explore his and others' reactions to pain and disappointment and death. At times this book is dark, angry, and violent. At other times it is bewildered, and at others horrified or determined or intentionally blind to difficult things. At times the characters step out and argue directly with the author (as opposed to the author's character in the book) and call him to task for both his literary and emotional excesses. At others, the narrative is plain and unadorned and beautiful -- often brutally direct and powerful.

I recently criticized a Mormon author for publishing an essay that I thought was too dark, too brutal for a general audience. I suggested that the Mormon author could have pulled off the dark and intimate essay if he had been less self-conscious within the text, less obviously commenting on his own history. I saw it as an issue not of subject matter (I believe we should tell more of our difficult and painful stories) but of craft, that too much commentary by an author on his own pain is necessarily maudlin and maybe even narcissistic, and that the events are best left to carry their own interpretations without editorializing by the author.

AHWOSG proves me wrong on that opinion.

This book is relentlessly self-aware. It comments endlessly on itself and its characters and its contexts. It interprets events and their meanings. It points out its own excess and arrogance and cynicism. But it does so in a way that feels like discovery, not preachment; like an exchange between intimate friends, not tough lessons bestowed by a revered master on a fawning acolyte. Eggers treads that line with a grace, energy, and fearlessness that makes me happily swallow minor frustrations with pace or language or stylistic excess and plow on through to the next page. When it was done, I was more than a little disappointed, and I've had a hard time picking up something else that I know won't engage me as much as this book did.

Part of what makes this book so engaging for me is that it readily exposes both the wisdom and the folly of the author in dealing with things. He messes up sometimes. He is irrational at times. He goes through the same ups and downs, the same manic cycles that I know from my own life. And by sharing the good, the bad, the sublime, and the ugly, Eggers shows me that I'm not the only one who sometimes thinks or feels or wishes unpleasant things. Had the author been more smug, this book would have flopped entirely. Had the author claimed to have discovered the fount (or worse, claimed to have *become* said fount) of all knowledge, I would have angrily cast the book away.

Instead, the author simply tells who he is and how he's come to this point in his life. I found the conversation to be both interesting and edifying, and it has become a point of discussion with my closest friend, yet another shared experience that we can relate to each other over. All in all, a successful accomplishment for any book, in my opinion.

The paperback edition I read is actually the second version, and includes a supplementary essay called "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" that provides explanations, clarifications, and corrections of portions of the main text. It's delivered like the old Tor double books, where you flip the book from top to bottom and turn it over to read the second feature. The essay is very much worth reading and increases the power of the main text.

A note -- read every word of this book, from the copyright page through the preface to the captions on the back cover. Read the author blurb and the introduction. Every part of this book entertains or explains or exposes.

What this book isn't

AHWOSG is not an answer manual. It does not wrap up neatly and with the fully realized peace that the author has sought throughout the text. In fact, the last two pages of the main text are an increasingly desperate combination of challenge to live well and support those in need of comfort, and a plea for someone to come and finally put the bullet in his chest that will end his pain once and for all. If the story ends with acceptance, it's only an acceptance of the fact that pain of one kind or another is a part of life and must be dealt with somehow.

This book is not polite. It uses foul language on a regular basis, and at times uses a lot of it in a very small space (a cursory count gives twenty variations on f*** in the last full page of the main text -- by far the highest concentration anywhere in the book -- which, I would argue, is done to a purpose and should be read as such, but that's not part of the scope of this review). It does not shy away from descriptions of his mother's last days and use of the half-moon cup to spit malodorous bile into. It does not hide the sometimes spiteful and mean things we do and think (to others and to ourselves) in the course of trying to understand our own pain.

This book is not informed in any way by a Mormon worldview. Eggers admits to a limited religious life as a child, but nothing significant. His visions of the afterlife are a combination of Catholic angels-on-a-cloud and _Friday the 13th_ style vengeful spirits, and are more about drama than religion. He does not consider religion much in his search for understanding, and does not discuss issues of redemption or salvation or god except in the most oblique ways. The book does not spend a lot of time considering moral issues from a religious/redemptive standpoint, though it does spend a fair amount of time with issues of individual goodness and hope.

AHWOSG is not about solutions, really. It's about one man's very personal efforts to deal with a terrible event and to come to some sort of personal equilibrium. But in the end, little or nothing is solved and few questions are really stated. It doesn't try to validate its own opinions, but rather just to explain them and where they came from. It isn't a feel-good special, and yet I came out of it feeling quite good for reasons I will talk about in the next section.

Why this book should matter to Mormons

There is much to criticize in this book. Despite the author's many attempts to pre-empt criticism through harsh self-analysis, sometimes the narrative does fall over the line a little, does wallow a bit or expose the author's arrogance or presumption. But that's okay because it's that very sense of openness and honest exposure, of willingness to look bad on paper in order to reveal the whole story, that makes this book worth reading and sharing. Mormons talk of exposing our warts. Eggers does so with wit and style and an engaging self-awareness that makes me love him all the more for those very warts.

That's one of the key things that I think Mormons can gain from this book. It makes little or no attempt to justify itself, and it doesn't try to convince the reader of any particular philosophical stance (except maybe that we're all in it together so we might as well help each other how we can -- but that's a fairly basic stance). It doesn't try to prove the existence or non- of God or religion or redemption or grace. It never forces you to evaluate the author's argumentative stance because it never really argues a stance.

But by exposing the author so fully, so completely, this book does show readers something vital and intimate and important. By exposing not only his noble but also his petty thoughts, Eggers provides us with a mirror in which we can see those same things in ourselves. And by seeing them in him, we are shown that others feel as we sometimes feel, that we are not alone in wondering and questioning and doubting and raging and weeping for our own pain.

Is that not at least part of what grace is -- permission to mourn our own loss?

Some will argue that the book is so focused on the author's own pain that it short-changes more worthy topics and explorations. I think that very inward look is what makes the book work. Soon after his parents' deaths, the author and his little brother Toph are driving along the California coast reveling in their freedom from parental constraint, feeling powerful in the fact that they have been specially Chosen to bear this pain so that all the world can be edified by feeling sorry for them. They are ambassadors for personal redemption, a focus for the pain that people aren't allowed to feel for themselves but may feel for others.

Self-indulgent little turds, aren't they? And if the story had stopped there, I would have agreed. But it was more than that. It was an attempt to understand why they had been subjected to this sudden, incomprehensible pain. If they were really Chosen, then at least the pain had meaning and value. And as he moves on through other stages of grief, the author continues to cast off the excuses and justifications, shows that at his core there remains a hurt that he does not know how to deal with. At more than one place Eggers laments the loss of his own freedom to his role as parent for his brother -- then follows it up with evidence of his joy in that role. He copes at the same time that he continues to hurt.

One of the hallmarks of Mormon literature is an attempt to deal with an Issue. Our favorite Issues seem to be 1) recovering from the soul-injuring effects of sin, 2) learning for ourselves the truth of a principle or an institution, 3) illustrating how gospel principles save us from greater pain or suffering, 4) justifying our failures to live up to our own visions of goodness/blaming the inflexible institutions of the Church for that failure, and 5) finding peace or acceptance in our imperfection, with or without the Church.

Eggers dealt with none of those (okay, maybe the last one about finding peace -- but even then it was the search for peace from pain, not an analysis of our imperfections in an eternal context). He didn't hedge. He didn't attempt to either prove or disprove the validity of the institution or its concepts. He just told his story, in all of its inward looking glory. He focused only on his own feelings and reactions, not on an institution and its success or failures to help him find peace. That focus is what made the story accessible to any reader

Mormons can learn a lot from that, both in terms of personal acceptance and in terms of telling our stories. A focus on our humanity will make our stories more accessible to broader audiences, but it will also tell our community that it's okay to be human, that we do think and feel and exult and rage and weep just like other people do. We need to see each other as people, not as ward members or church leaders or opportunities for service or role models. Yes, these things are all part of being Mormon and interacting with both each other and the rest of the world, but beneath the community of the saints is the community of humanity, and I don't think we give that commonality enough copy.

This is, of course, one of the directions I would like to see Mormon literature go -- toward a more introspective but less self-conscious look at who we are and how we deal with our world. There is an important difference between self-consciousness and self-awareness, and I have seem very little of the second. Some apologetic works have come close, and some works that are critical of the church or its institutions have come even closer. But we still insist on holding to the shields that Mormondom provides for us, and we continue to hide from ourselves. In my opinion.

It takes either tremendous courage or colossal unconcern for the opinions of others to expose oneself as Eggers has done in AHWOSG. But the rewards for us as a culture made of individual humans are potentially enormous. I would love to see a Mormon version of this book that deals with real pain as openly and imperfectly as AHWOSG, that reveals the sometimes un-Mormon thoughts that we Mormons often have, and creates us as humans rather than either penitents or villains.

Why I think you should buy (and read) this book

This book is not for everyone. It is very self-aware and inward looking. Many will find it to be too much so, to edge on self-indulgent. It contains a worldview that is not really compatible with Mormon practice, and uses a great deal of profanity. It contains some descriptions that are at least uncomfortable, and may well be too vivid for some people. It deals with some subject matters that are very personal and intimate, and does so in a very open and frank way.

It is also a funny, poignant, and powerful look into the deepest recesses of another person's mind and thoughts and reasons. The writing is clever, vivid, and unusual. I could call it experimental except that all the individual gadgets have been done before -- though I think Eggers combines them as well as I've ever seen. He uses all parts of the writer's toolkit to create odd and wonderful scenes that illuminate and clarify, that get to the core ideas hidden behind and beneath the words -- the basic concepts that language tries so hard to obscure.

If you've asked yourself "Am I the only one who ever . . .?" then this book may well show you that you aren't. If you have ever felt unresolved pain or wished for release from that pain, this book could be a cooling balm, a recognition and a comfort. It was and is for me. I recommend it as strongly as I can, with the caveats listed above.

Some random parting comments

I don't usually read memoirs. I usually find them either too limited or too self-congratulatory. For me AHWOSG broke through those limits in a big way and opened up a part of my mind that was unwilling to look inward without guilt. Because it does not try to teach me, it penetrates both deeper into what it is to be human and further into my own range of experience than any other such book I have ever read. It is not idealism or any other -ism, it's just one guy revealing himself to the rest of us as an act of personal reconstruction.

I liked AHWOSG. I want to read more books like it. I really want to see a Mormon version of it that combines the humor, the irreverence, and the recognition that this book offered to me.

Perhaps I've abused this list by posting a review of a book that has no direct connection to even the most liberal definitions of Mormon literature used here. But the book so moved me, so impressed me with its style, wit, and honesty, that I want to see my own people's reaction to it. I want to see if it's just me or if others of my faith found power and value in it. Because in discussing this work that does not directly address my people, I think I can learn more about who my people are and how we think. I believe we can explore our humanity, and thus our Mormonness, by looking at this very personal and very powerful book -- be it to agree, disagree, or defer.

Scott Parkin
Santaquin, Utah