A heartbreaking work of staggering genius

Heartbreaking? Certainly. Staggering? Yes, Id say so. And if genius is capturing the universal in a fresh and memorable way, call it that too Anthony Quinn, Sunday Times Is this how all orphans would speak -- I am at once pitiful and monstrous, I know -- if they had Dave Eggerss prodigious linguistic gifts? For he does write wonderfully, and this is an extremely impressive debut John Banville, Irish Times A virtuosic piece of writing, a big, daring, manic-depressive stew of a book that noisily announces the debut of a talented -- yes, staggeringly talented -- new writer -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Exhilarating ...Profoundly moving, occasionally angry and often hilarious ...A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is, finally, a finite book of jest, which is why it succeeds so brilliantly -- New York Times Book Review What is really shocking and exciting is the books sheer rage. AHWOSG is truly ferocious, like any work of genius. Eggers -- self-reliant, transcendent, expansive -- is Emersons ideal Young American. [The book] does itself justice: it is a settling of accounts.