A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is a memoir by the American writer Dave Eggers, published in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of his younger brother Christopher, known as Toph, after the deaths of their parents from cancer.

The book's mother, Heidi McSweeney Eggers, is raising her children while suffering from stomach cancer, and she dies in January 1992, relatively early in the narrative. Eggers's father, John K. Eggers, was a heavy smoker and drinker, and his death follows hers within weeks, leaving the youngest child in his son's care. What follows is an account of the two brothers setting up a household together, of Eggers's attempts to work and to write, and of the ordinary business of raising a boy while grieving. The memoir was a commercial and critical success and reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Critics described its prose as wild and vibrant, and the book was later chosen by The Times as one of the best books of the decade.

Eggers later founded a literary magazine and a publishing house, and this was the first of his books.