A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is a heartbreaking work by Dave Eggers (b. 1970, Boston). His first. A coming-of-age novel, a screenplay for a dreamlike film, an autobiographical metastory, the book marks an era and a generation. It was published in 2000, with perfect timing: before the World Trade Center and at the peak of MTV culture. Like a fable, the intertwined plot starts off with the deaths of the parents of the protagonist, young Eggers, who in his early twenties finds himself taking care of his eight-year-old little brother, Toph. Orphaned just like superheroes, or like Pippi Longstocking, the two tackle the adventure of their tragedy, finding strength in their pain. The vertigo of loss gains momentum in a devastating and dazzling descriptive obsession, capable of expressing the most inaccessible states of mind. A masterpiece of “Hysterical Realism”, this is an extraordinary display of surrealist power. Try to pretend that it’s fiction.