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This is the 2nd and final part of my conversation with Dave Eggers
(if I were you I’d just click play on the device above and start listening, cuz imho this conversation is a treasure trove)
Dave opens up and gets candid about his own artistic impulse to pivot with each writing project. He talks about his early days in art school, and what drew him to certain artists. He talks about Lorrie Moore, George Saunders, , and why he thinks Percival Everett is probably the rightful heir to the more radical writers of the 60’s.
For me personally, this conversation was somewhat emotional (but in a good one). As Dave notes at the end of our convo, we’ve been friends now for 25 years, a fact which I find shocking but also moving. Also, at some point in here, the writer Michael Lewis comes up: and I talk about how I heard Michael Lewis on the podcast Smartless, talking about in the aftermath of losing his daughter: his friend Dave Eggers showed up on his porch with food, and told Michael, “I’m going to be right there in that car in front of your house, for the next 24 hours.” And then Michael Lewis talked about he had never experienced grief and loss like that, and what he learned from Dave in that gesture is that that is the best and most compassionate thing you can do for someone.
Anyway, if this episode has a theme it is definitely capital F friendship.
Dave Eggers quotes
On Lorrie Moore and her new book
I've been reading Laurie Moore's new book. I'm only in the second chapter, but she's always been one of my favorite writers for the same reason. She's so funny. She writes beautiful sentences, but she was not afraid to throw in One liners every paragraph. And they're really one liners. They're really tightly written. They're very funny and they're not afraid to go for the laugh. She’s a national treasure, one of our best writers, every bit as funny and important as Mark Twain was in his time.
New McSweeney’s 71: The Monstrous and the Horrible, edited by Brian Evenson
On Kurt Vonnegut
I think that people should know that he was the guy that you'd want him to be. He was every bit as generous, and kind. And, we asked him to do the intro to the Best American Non Required Reading, which I used to edit. And he wrote a fax back. He used to fax and he wrote back, Dear Believer. Cause he got it mixed up , he's like, I wish I could do the intro. That would have been a gas or something like that. It sounded like he didn't either didn't sound like he 100 percent meant it, joking like boy, , what fun that would have been. But I'm, old and tired and I can't do it. Something like that. It was very him. And, we've kept and framed this fax by him and, but you know, he was exactly the guy that he was on the page and that's not that common.
Dave Eggers recommends 3 books
Jesmyn Ward’s forthcoming Let Us Descend. Gorgeous sentences. I cannot believe how beautiful and lyrical and lush her sentences are. I got to be on the National Book Committee when we gave her her second National Book Award.
Percival Everett's new book that comes out imminently, James.
Daniel Gumbiner’s Fire in the Canyon. (which just published today). He wrote a book about fire country and the wildfires here in Northern California. And he's from here. And talk about a book with a, well really bad pun, but it's a slow burn. And it has a really stunning ending. And it's one of those really bold endings that you do not see coming. It’s the perfect ending. And you think, Oh my God, it couldn't end any other way.
I have some questions for you. Any answer you give will be correct.
Do you have a favorite book by Dave Eggers?
Have you read Lorrie Moore? Do you agree that Lorrie Moore and Vonnegut have some of the same DNA, in terms of their ability to deliver one-liners?
Have you ever had a friend show up for you in a way that was life-changing? (dog and cats count, of course).
Do you have any suggestion for how I can stop thinking about that lunchbox designed by Art Spiegelman?
With the onset of shorter days, is anyone’s Seasonal Affective Disorder starting to flare up? Whew, me too. Can this podcast help offset SAD? I sure hope so.
This podcast will always be free, but it’s also how I buy groceries. So if you dig the show, please consider becoming a paid subscriber
Buy Dave Eggers’ new novel The Eyes and the Impossible (with wooden cover) from McSweeney’s
Buy Dave’s new novel (without wooden cover) from Bookshop
Visit the McSweeney’s website
36. Dave Eggers enters the chat: Part II